Old Enemies, New Treasures
by E4flying
Summary: Neal is taken and made to work for an old foe. It's up to Peter and the gang to save him before its too late. This is my take on the continuation of the last scene in season 5. Spoilers for all seasons.
1. Chapter 1

_I don't own White Collar or its characters. If only._

* * *

CHAPTER 1

"Why are you following me? Who are you?"

"I'm about to become the last person on earth who knows where you are."

Neal Caffrey barely had time to process this before his arms were grabbed from behind, and a black hood slammed over his head. Thrashing, Neal tried to free himself, but he was caught off guard and pulled along the waterfront. They stopped and he was thrown into what he assumed was the back of a truck.

His wrists were cinched together with a zip-tie- too tight for him to slip out of. At least I have on the anklet, thought Neal. But he felt a hand grab his leg, and the snip of his anklet being cut. That scared him a little. He didn't know his captors, but they clearly knew him well enough to know that he wore a tracking anklet and that he could slip out of any handcuffs.

Lying on his stomach in a moving vehicle, unable to see anything, Neal thought it couldn't get much worse. But then he was hit hard on the back of the head, and he lost consciousness.

* * *

"Hey hon."

"Hey hon. How's DC?" Peter asked his wife, Elizabeth, speaking to her through his desk phone in his office.

"It's gorgeous!" Elizabeth gushed. "The weather's great, and the national gallery is fantastic. I got a tour today, and I'll start learning the details about the pieces tomorrow."

"That's great!" To anyone else, Peter would've sounded genuinely pleased. But Elizabeth knew him better than anyone.

"Aww, honey, I'll see you soon. You're coming to visit and help me set up this weekend, remember?"

"Of course," Peter responded. "I've got to go," he said, seeing an alert pop up on his computer. "I love you."

"Love you too, honey."

Peter pressed a button on the phone to end the call, and then turned his attention to the blinking message on the computer. "Diana!"

Diana came up the stairs in an instant. "Yes boss?"

"Neal ran." Peter looked at the alert on his screen, not quite believing it himself.

"What?" exclaimed Diana. "When?"

"I just got the alert," said Peter.

"Why would he do that?" Diana asked.

"I think I might know," Peter said, grimly. "He asked for an early release, and it was declined."

"So?" Diana said. "It's just a little longer on the anklet. He'll serve out his time, and then he'll get the anklet off."

"Bruce said they denied it because they didn't want to lose him as a CI. Neal makes us better. Bruce said they were seriously considering never taking him off the anklet."

"But that's not the deal," Diana said, annoyed. "No wonder he ran. I'd be pretty mad, too."

"Still, it's not like Neal to make those kinds of rash decisions." Peter frowned. "Round up the crew and meet in the conference room. We have to find him again." Diana left.

Peter took a moment to compose himself. Neal couldn't be his friend right now, he had to be his target. When he walked into the conference room, everyone was already there.

"There's a new case?" asked Jones.

"Yeah," Peter said, and pressed a button on the remote control Diana handed him when he walked in. "Capturing Neal Caffrey." Peter looked at the screen, and a large picture of Neal smiling looked down at him. All Peter could think of was, here we go again.

* * *

When Neal awoke, the first thing he was aware of was that he had a throbbing headache. Wincing, he reached to feel the top of his head. In doing so, he realized he could move his arms again. He opened his eyes and found that he had no blindfold. Still, he couldn't see anything- the room he was in was pitch black. And cold.

Neal shivered, and hugged his arms around himself. He wasn't wearing his clothes anymore, but just his undershirt. His legs were bare too, as he only had on boxers. He didn't have his cell phone, or his lock pick set that he kept in him at all times. Whoever kidnapped him must've known who they were dealing with. Neal shivered again, but this time it had nothing to do with the cold.

Neal commanded himself to stand up, in an effort to try to feel his way around where he was and possibly gain an advantage. But as he stood, he felt his head rush and he fell to the floor, feeling sick. After a few deep breaths, he resolved to crawl instead of walk.

Squinting around, Neal tried to see anything at all, but he couldn't even see his hands when he put them right in front of his face. But as he looked up, he noticed two small red dots far above him. Cameras. No doubt equipped with night-vision capabilities. Someone could see everything he was doing.

Reaching a hand as high as he could on the wall, Neal started crawling around, trying to gage the size of the room. After turning two corners, he stopped suddenly. His fingers had passed over a small crack in the wall. A door frame. He immediately started moving his hand up and down, searching for a door knob. He even stood, dizzy though it made him, in an effort to reach higher. But no luck. He spent another minute pushing the door, hoping against hope that someone forgot to lock it. But as he had expected, nothing happened.

Just as Neal gave up and took a couple steps away from it, the door banged open and a light turned on.

Doubled over with his hands over his eyes to try to protect himself from the blinding light, he heard a woman's voice, with an English accent:

"Hello again, Neal Caffrey."


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

In no time, the conference room became a war room. There was a clock set up on the table, showing the time since he cut his anklet. A map of Neal Caffrey's 2-mile radius hung on the wall, and beside it a map of the world. They knew all too well that he could disappear across countries in the blink of an eye.

There was a big red "X" on the smaller map, and then a line connecting it to another "X."

"This," Peter had explained a moment earlier, "was where Neal was last seen." He traced the line with his finger, "And this is where Jones tracked down his anklet."

"It was left in the back of a pickup truck," Jones said, moving forward and placing the anklet on the table. It was in three pieces. "Looks like he did a number on it. Smart move, to put it in a moving vehicle to distract us. I cleared the driver and the passenger, they know nothing about it or how it got there."

"Ok. Think people. We've caught him before. What's the first thing he's done?" Peter asked the group.

"He's gotten out of the country, fast," said Diana. "He knows he'd be too easy to track here."

"And he took private planes," added Jones.

"Ok, Jones, go talk to homeland security. We need to know all the planes that left the country from this area in the last couple hours."

"On it." Jones left the room.

"The rest of you find out his aliases, safe houses, and anywhere he might've gone before catching a plane out of here. We need to track him from the beginning." The Harvard gang, as Peter called them, followed Jones out.

"Diana."

Diana turned and looked Peter, the man she trusted with her life. "We'll find him, boss."

He nodded. "This time just feels- different. The first time, I didn't know him. He was just another target. The last time, I told him to run. I don't know... Something about this doesn't feel right." Staring off into spaced for a minute, he started to laugh.

"Boss?" asked Diana, clearly confused.

"It's just that the person who would best know how to catch Neal Caffrey, the great con man, is my CI." He smiled sadly in the irony of it all. "But I guess he'll never be my CI again."

* * *

Neal blinked several times, but just as soon as his eyes adjusted to the bright lights, he felt a strong pain in his knee and he fell to the ground.

Standing above him was a woman wearing all black, and a pair of high heels that had caused Neal the immense pain in his leg. She had short black hair, and dark brown eyes.

But something about her, the shape of her face, made Neal think he should know her. He closed his eyes and pictured her... and slowly he could see her hair lengthening and turning red… her eyes a piercing dark blue… a curious smile on her face…

"Abigail?"

"Oh, Abigail. That was a cover, silly. An alias." Her tone was flirty and light, but her eyes her cold. "But still, you remember me. That counts for something, I guess." Neal noticed she didn't give him her real name.

Neal did remember her, quite plainly in fact. She had blackmailed him into stealing a piece from the Kessman Museum, right under Peter's nose. In exchange she had offered him information on Ellen. Neal had to turn down the evidence to please Peter, but he got a copy of it in the end. None of it mattered now though. Not after James… well, it didn't matter anymore.

Which brought Neal right back to Abigail. Or whatever her real name was. "What do you want from me?" asked Neal. "Why did you bring me here?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Abigail replied in a sing-songy voice a smirk unfurling on her face. But just then it disappeared and she spoke in a soft, even voice. "You screwed me, Neal Caffrey. We had a deal, and you screwed me over. So now, I get to have my revenge."

All of a sudden her fist came flying out, and Neal ducked instinctively. But then Abigail swing her leg and hit him directly on his side. The wind knocked out of him, Neal fell against the wall and Abigail swung again, hitting him in the side of the head. Neal's vision swung in and out of focus, already injured from his previous blow to the head.

"You're great plan for revenge," gasped Neal, "is beating me up?"

"No." Abigail stared at him coldly. "I have greater things in store. Just you wait, Neal Caffrey. Just you wait."

With that, she turned around and walked out of the room. As the door slammed behind her, the lights went off.

Neal groaned. Peter, he cried silently. I need you.

* * *

Peter leaned heavily against his desk, staring at the papers scattered all over it without really seeing them. He knew it would be hard. After all, it had taken him more than three years the first time. But the first time, he didn't know Neal. This time he did.

Sinking into his chair, Peter went over the events of the day again in his head. Jones found the anklet in a truck with no connection to Neal. Then he and Diana got the names of all passengers on private and commercial jets out of New York, but there was no sign of Neal. Diana started calling her oversees contacts, to make sure they were aware that he was on the loose and that they should look out for him. The Harvard gang found no trace of any of his known aliases, and were still searching for others. But still, no sign of Neal anywhere.

Peter inadvertently glanced at Neal's desk in the front of the office. Why would he run? Peter thought. The Neal he knew would not leave New York on a whim.

But there was a small voice nagging him in the back of his mind. Neal Caffrey was one of the best con men in the world. He thought about Neal's request for commutation and how easily he handed over the Hope Diamond. What if this was all a con? What if he didn't know Neal at all?

Peter shook his head to try to clear his thoughts. Focus on the target, he told himself. If you focus, you'll catch him.

To distract himself, Peter thought of calling Elizabeth to see how her day was. He glanced at the clock and realized it was 9:00 at night. He knew everyone else had left by then, but he didn't realize it was that late.

He packed up a bunch of files to take home. Peter told himself that he was so focused on Neal's case that he lost track of time. He tried not to ponder on how many other late nights he'd have because Elizabeth wouldn't call him to come home. He missed her so much, and it had only been a couple days. He was seized with a sudden desire to call DC and beg for the nice-comfy-seat-behind-a-desk job, the set-hours-and-zero-chance-of-being-kidnapped-or-shot job, the my-wife-is-waiting-for-me-at-home job. But then he looked down and saw "NEAL CAFFREY" printed on the folder he was carrying, and he knew that would never work for him. In some way, Peter would be chasing Neal forever.

Peter got home, dumped his stuff on the table, and got out a beer. He couldn't go to upstairs- he didn't want to spend another night alone in the cold king-sized bed, without Elizabeth lying against him. Not to mention it had been almost 12 hours since Neal cut his anklet. Time wasn't a commodity one could waste when chasing Neal Caffrey.

Peter got out a notepad from under a stack of newspapers on the table (nothing was cleaned much, anymore) and felt a large, warm body lean against his leg. "Satchmo! How are you buddy?" The dog barked sleepily, and Peter laughed.

Turning back to his work, Peter thought about how he had caught Neal in the past. The first time Neal slipped up looking for Kate. The second, he was found at her last known location. When he was in Cape Verde, Peter found him through Ellen. But there was no girl now to follow, at least none that Peter knew of. Although, just after the whole thing with Rebecca, Peter couldn't image Neal being with a new girl already. It was hard to believe that even the great Neal Caffrey could be conned, but he was. Part of Peter wondered whether he'd ever be the same, after Rebecca played with his feelings the way she did.

But feelings, neither Neal's nor Peter's, would help Peter find Neal. He needed facts, he needed a lead.

After spending another two hours combing through old files of Neal, he had nothing. Discouraged and tired, he fell asleep on the couch, with Satchmo by his side.

* * *

Judging by the pains in his stomach and the dryness of his throat, Neal figured it was probably a day after he was taken from the waterfront in New York City. Since Abigail had left, he had been left in the dark, with no water, food, or light of any kind. He explored his room- or rather, his cell- for a while, but could find no way out and no loose pieces of metal or anything that could help him pry the door open and escape. The door, it seemed, was only able to be opened from the outside. That explained why Abigail had left the door open a bit when she came in. Neal assumed she had strong men, bodyguards that people like her used to enforce their will, were posted outside in case something happened. But nothing was going to happen. Both Neal and Abigail knew that.

There was nothing in his cell except for Neal himself and the cameras. And when he tried jumping to reach the cameras, trying to break one and use its pieces to pick the lock, they were too high. Neal knew that Abigail could see everything he was doing, but he had to take the risk anyway. Not that it paid off, though.

Another day passed. Neal was asleep for part of it, but mostly he started pacing, trying to figure a way out. But soon he had to stop. His mouth was so dry and his head hurt. When he stood up again, he fell back down. Neal didn't know what Abigail's plan was, but it was possible he would die of thirst before she got to implement it. Or maybe that was her plan.

Neal was too tired to think. He could hardly picture Peter anymore, in the darkness. He was sure Peter was on his trail, trying to find him, but it would be hard, seeing as he'd have no clues about where Neal could be. Abigail didn't seem like what she wanted was money. There was going to be no ransom demand.

Laying on the ground, Neal mentally prepared himself to die. He'd never see Mozzie again. Or Peter. Or Sara…

As he started thinking about Sara, realizing he missed her so much, the door opened and a blinding light switched on. Neal squeezed his eyes shut, and his head exploded in pain.

"Get up," snarled a voice, and someone kicked him. Abigail.

Neal sat up, using the wall to support himself. In front of him was a bottle of water and a sandwich.

"Eat," Abigail snapped at him.

Neal didn't need to be told twice. He crawled over to the food as fast as he could, and raised the bottle of water to his lips. It occurred to him that the water could be laced with something, but he was beyond caring at that point. If he died of poison later, it would be faster than dying of thirst now.

When the bottle was almost empty and the sandwich half eaten, Abigail finally spoke.

"Listen to me as you finish eating," she said. Her tone was business-like, as if she didn't just almost starve a man to death. "There's a bank in Switzerland, the National Bank."

Neal glanced up from his food. He swallowed and said, "No one has ever broken into the National Bank." His voice was raspy, but coming back to its normal volume.

"I guess you'll have to be the first," Abigail said.

Neal laughed hollowly. "That's your big plan?" he asked. "You want me to rob the National Bank in Switzerland? And then… what? I just hand over the money like a good boy? You didn't learn anything from last time, did you?"

"Oh, I learned, all right," Abigail replied. "And when you follow my plan, you will escape with millions of dollars, which will all be mine."

"And if I don't follow your plan?" Neal asked.

Abigail kicked Neal hard in the stomach, and then bent down and grabbed him by the throat. Neal tried to fight back, but he could barely breathe, and the past two days had left him so weak. Neal's blue eyes stared into Abigail's dark brown eyes, the color of chocolate. She held on for a second more and then whispered, "You don't have a choice."

With that she let him go, and Neal fell to the ground, gasping for breath.

Kicking aside the half-eaten sandwich, she walked out of the room, leaving the door open. Neal tried to get up, seeing his window of opportunity. She couldn't have been that stupid, could she? But as he struggled to his feet, Abigail walked back in, carrying a suit. His suit. She dumped it on the ground. "Change."

Neal grabbed his pants and started pulling them on. He discreetly checked the pockets as he buttoned them. Empty. The jacket, too, didn't have his cell phone or lock picks in them. He noticed, grimly, that his suit was too big on him. Not enough for it to sag, but enough that he needed a belt. He could really use that other half of the sandwich.

"I'll give you an earpiece when we get to the bank," Abigail said. "Put it on, and I'll communicate to you through that. Do everything I say, and nothing else."

Neal nodded, not asking about punishment again.

"Put these on, too," Abigail said. She handed him a pair of glasses, and a hat. His hat. "They'll give me 360 degree vision on you at all times. Don't take them off."

Neal took them and put them on. Then something dawned on him. He wasn't wearing a suit, or his hat, when he was kidnapped. She must've broken into his house to get them, because they certainly were his. Then he realized... June.

Abigail was walking out of the room, when he said, "You didn't hurt her, did you?" She turned, a smirk on her face. "Tell me you didn't touch her, or I swear to god-"

"She wasn't home," Abigail said. "Neither was the little guy. Don't worry." But she said it in such a menacing way that Neal was worried. She knew way too much about him. It almost reminded him of Rebecca.

Abigail walked out of his cell, and Neal watched her. When he didn't follow, she turned around and looked him in the eye. "Let's go. We've got a bank to rob."


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

Elizabeth walked in to her new house after a long day at the gallery. She maneuvered around the boxes and put her purse on the table. The boxes were still all over the place, as she had planned to put most of the stuff away with Peter when he came in for the weekend. But that wouldn't happen now- he had called her to tell her that Neal ran. Elizabeth was frustrated that Neal was tearing her husband away again, but a part of her understood why Peter couldn't be with her. Although she resented it, she knew the man she married, and Peter Burke would put finding Neal over anything else. Even seeing his wife. Sometimes she wished Peter had never taken Neal's case, so many years ago. She missed the times when it was just her and Peter. But when she thought that she felt so guilty. Neal was a part of the family. And after everything he'd been through recently, she just wanted him home again.

Elizabeth's phone rang, pulling her out of her thoughts. Digging her hand into her purse, she pulled out her phone, and answered the call from an unknown number.

"Mrs. Suit," she heard.

"Mozzie? Why are you calling?" Elizabeth asked. "I thought you would be enjoying yourself on an island somewhere right now."

"Why is that?" Mozzie asked, sounding suspicious. "Does this have something to do with Neal?"

"Moz, what's going on?"

Elizabeth heard Mozzie take a deep breath on the other side of the line. She had heard this before; when he was deciding whether or not to reveal something to her, he would always take a deep breath. She kept quiet, waiting for him to speak.

"I went to June's last night, looking for Neal. He wasn't home, so I figured he was working late. I helped myself to his wine, and then went home. This morning I came back, because I had… certain information to share with him. He wasn't there, and I could tell he hadn't been there that night. So I called him. Nothing. I got in touch with my contacts, but no one has seen him around." He paused. "He's in trouble, I know it. He never would've dropped off the grid without talking to me first, and he left behind the things he would need if he were to, you know, disappear. I've tried everything. Everything except…"

Elizabeth knew what was coming. "The FBI."

Mozzie was quiet, and Elizabeth could tell he was worried. And if Mozzie was scared enough to ask for help from the Bureau, Neal was in big trouble.

"I'll call my husband," Elizabeth said.

Mozzie muttered a thanks, and hung up.

Elizabeth collapsed on the couch, running her fingers through her hair. This was a whole different situation now. Neal would never run without Mozzie. He had to be in trouble. But what kind of trouble? She shivered when she thought of Keller, the man who kidnapped Peter a couple years ago. And then Keller kidnapped her. Could he have taken Neal this time?

She took the phone and dialed Peter.

"Hey, hon," he said, when he picked up the phone.

"Honey, listen. Mozzie just called me."

"Mozzie?!"

"Yeah. He's not on an island somewhere with Neal. In fact, he doesn't know where Neal is."

"What do you mean?"

"Peter, Moz thinks- he _knows_ Neal is in trouble." There was silence on the other end of the line. Elizabeth could picture Peter, the way he looked ever so slightly to his right when he was absorbing new information.

"Ok, El, I'm gonna call Bruce. He's going to station a couple agents at your house, just in case."

Elizabeth hated getting FBI protection, but she knew better than to argue. Peter was just trying to protect her, in the only way he could from hundreds of miles away.

"I love you honey. Call me if you need anything, but right now I have to go."

"Find him, honey," Elizabeth said. They hung up.

* * *

Diana and Jones were in the conference room, examining maps and files, as Peter came in, looking pale.

Diana got up, and helped him into a chair. "Boss? What's wrong?"

Peter looked up at her. "We've been at this all wrong. Neal didn't run. He was taken." He told them what Elizabeth had said.

Diana got Peter a cup of water, and Jones called DC to appraise them of the situation. When they came back into the conference room, Peter had changed from Neal's friend to Agent Peter Burke.

"Jones, get the Harvard crew to alter their search. They need to make a list of suspects, and track them down. Find out where they are right now, and where they were two days ago when his anklet was cut." He turned to Diana. "Talk to Mozzie. I don't know what went on between you two, but I think now you can get information out of him the best. We need to track Neal's footprints."

"But Peter-" Jones questioned.

"I know, that's what we've been doing for the past two days now." Peter walked over and tore the map of the world off the wall, where they had crossed off places he couldn't be. "We start over, right now. This completely different. Neal is in trouble. He could be hurt, we don't know. But we have a responsibility to find him." He looked at the timer. "2 days, 18 hours, and 51 minutes since he dropped off the grid, and we are only just learning that he did not choose to disappear. I had to learn from Mozzie calling my wife!" He sounded a little hysterical.

"Peter," Diana said. Her use of his first name steadied him, as she hardly ever called him that. "We're going to find him."

Peter nodded, and pulled his laptop closer to him. He logged in to the US prison system database, to start researching people with a grudge against Neal. The first name he entered was 'Rachel Turner.'

* * *

When Neal followed Abigail out of his room, he saw that he was right about the men outside of it. As they passed many guards in the long, bending hallway leading away from the cell, they wordlessly took positions around Neal. When Neal quickened his pace just a little bit, the man behind him put a hand on Neal's back, not as a comforting gesture, but as a warning. Neal slowed down again.

He had no idea how this was going to work, but he was beginning to see Abigail's plan. With Neal as her fall-man, she could rob any place in the world. If he got away with it, she would get the reward. If not, he would go to jail and she would walk away.

And if he resisted… well, it would be too easy to frame Neal for the crimes. After all, he committed the crimes. No one would believe that he had been forced to. Not even Peter. Despite Neal's unending trust in Peter, it wasn't always reciprocated when it came to controversial thefts.

The only thing to do, he thought, would be to contact Peter before the theft. But could he do that undetected? And what would Abigail do to him if he couldn't manage it?

Abigail started walking up stairs, and Neal followed. They stretched upwards in what seemed like an eternity. He figured that they must've held him underground. Neal knew that when he was down there, there'd be a slim chance that anyone, even Peter, would find him.

Neal didn't realize how far underground they were until he was still climbing stairs, five minutes later. Neither Abigail nor her henchmen were showing any signs that they were tired. Neal, though, was doing all he could to stay upright. Those stairs wouldn't have been a big deal a few days ago, but apparently his weakened body could barely handle them.

Finally, he could see an end to all the stairs. There was a trap door, which Abigail opened and climbed through. A man followed her through, and Neal was pushed up after. He found himself in a large, dark, room probably a basement. She was using a house as a front. He wondered if maybe she used her real name for the payment. He doubted it, and even if she did, he didn't know it anyway. On top of that there'd be no way to get the information to Peter.

Abigail turned around to look at him just as the last man came through the trapdoor. There were six in total. That was a lot of people to trust, thought Neal. Maybe one of them would turn on her? Not likely.

"Where to now?" Neal asked.

"That's really none of your concern," Abigail responded. Again, his arms were grabbed from behind and a hood slammed over his head. It was tied so he couldn't see, and his wrists tightened painfully with a zip-tie. Then he was led forward and up another set of stairs, and around a bend.

Neal's plan to steal a cell phone on the way to where they were going was no longer an option. His hands were tied behind his back and he couldn't see anything. He'd have to steal one later.

The men half-carried him up a few stairs, as he was tripping constantly without ability to see, and then lifted him off the ground. They threw him into something, probably a car of some sort, banging his arm against the car frame pretty hard in the process. He felt pain rush through his shoulder and down to his wrist. Then the trunk slammed, and Neal was alone and in the dark again.

* * *

Diana didn't know where to find Mozzie, so she called him on the number he had left her, in case she needed anything regarding Theo. On the first ring he picked up.

"Mozzie?"

"Lady Suit. How's baby Teddy?"

Diana wanted to correct him, and tell him, for the last time, that his name was Theo, but something in his voice made her soften. How would she feel if her best friend went missing?

"Moz, I want you to know that we're doing everything we can to find Neal."

Mozzie scoffed, but only half-heartedly.

"We need your help. We can't find him alone, and neither can you."

She could picture Mozzie weighing the situation, trying to decide if he should help the Bureau. But with his friend's life possibly in the balance, it wasn't a hard decision. "What do you need?"

* * *

Organized chaos erupted at the FBI headquarters in New York City when everyone was told that Neal Caffrey was kidnapped. Lists of names were printed, and each person got an enemy of Neal's to research the whereabouts of. At Diana's urging, even Mozzie contributed names (from afar) to hunt down. Everyone was participating- it was one thing for Neal Caffrey, the con man, to run, but it was quite another for the White Collar division to lose one of their own, no matter what his past.

Rachel Turner had been crossed off the list, as was Matthew Keller. Peter took them both personally, as he figured they were most likely to have a hand in it. But as Rachel was in prison and Keller was trying to run a job in Brazil, Peter felt confident neither were involved. And Ryan Wilkes was incarcerated still from the first time he kidnapped Neal.

The list of enemies was long, far longer than even Peter's enemies. Peter had put a lot of men behind bars, but Neal had too, and he had all the people he'd double crossed in the criminal world as well as everyone he'd stolen from. But as names were crossed off the list, Peter was losing hope. He knew Neal was in trouble, but there was nothing he could do to help him.

He kept blaming himself, thinking that he should've known something was wrong. He should've known that Mozzie was still in town. But then he reminded himself of the circumstances, and realized that anyone in his position would have made the same call. Neal had run before. It wasn't his fault to think that he had run again.

Peter looked at the list of enemies. Jones walked past him and added another name to the list. As many possibilities as they could eliminate, there were more people to search for. Would they be able to find the right person soon? Who knew how much time Neal had left, or what they were doing to him.

Peter wondered why there was no ransom demand. Usually they'd get one by then. That worried him. If they weren't looking to exchange him for something, they had more sinister ideas in mind, he was sure. Or what if they wanted to kill him? What if he was already dead? Peter put his head down and looked for the next name. It would not do anyone good to dwell on that thought. And there was no time to lose.

* * *

Neal had squirmed around in the back of the vehicle enough that he confirmed his hunch that he was in the trunk of a small car. Because of this, he couldn't stretch his body out all the way, but lay in a crunched position. But he was glad that he was alone in the trunk.

If it was such a small car, Neal wondered whether all of Abigail's henchmen could fit. If not, it would be all the better for him.

As he tried to move around as much as possible in the small trunk, the hood that was covering his eyes shifted, and he could see. Not very much though, he was still locked in a trunk. But it was nice that he could breathe a little better without it on. He had also knocked his hat loose, the one that Abigail had embedded with cameras. Apart from going through his- or, technically, Byron's- closet, Neal couldn't help but feel a little violated that she had messed with his hat.

Knowing that there was not much more he could do to better his situation, especially with his hands still tied behind his back, he started thinking about Abigail's plan, and tried to construct a plan to escape. He couldn't assume that he was still somewhere close to New York City, because they knocked him unconscious in the first vehicle he was in. He couldn't imagine, from there, that it would be too hard to get a private flight to somewhere in Switzerland and meet Abigail there. And he knew that she wasn't stupid enough to keep him around Peter and the FBI.

He knew this would make things harder for Peter to find him. After working for the FBI for a few years, Neal knew that they didn't expand the search to encompass the whole world until they knew with some degree of certainty that the missing person wasn't in the United States anymore. But he was already gone for about three days, more if he factored in a plane ride across the world, so Peter should already be suspecting that Neal wasn't in New York anymore, or anywhere in that country.

But that wasn't enough. Neal knew that he had to give Peter a sign of some sort, or a signal. Abigail was clearly too smart to stay in one place for long. On top of that, Neal was about to rob the most secure bank in the world. As much as he knew Peter trusted him, if Neal was hung out to dry by Abigail with bags of money from the bank, even Peter would have to arrest him.

This brought him right back to the issue of Abigail. Just how was she planning to get away with this? He had a feeling that being put in jail for a bank robbery wasn't as far as Abigail wanted to go in terms of revenge. Before she punished him by ensuring him a life in jail, he was sure that she'd take a few things for herself. She didn't get Pascal's mobile from the Kessman, so she still wanted that one piece of art that would complete a collection Neal was sure she had somewhere. Neal was sure, because used to feel the same way.

Used to. He had told Mozzie he was out, but that was before he was denied his freedom. And before he was kidnapped. He thought about what Moz said. Would he really be ok out of the game?

It didn't matter. All he had to do now was figure out how to somehow get a message to Peter, before the robbery of the Swiss National Bank.

* * *

3 days, 1 hour, and 12 minutes, read the timer. More than 3 days since Neal had disappeared. For obvious reasons, the white collar division of the New York FBI could not focus its entire staff on finding Neal Caffrey. Peter had gotten a call from Bruce, saying that he'd authorize a special force to find him, but they also had to get back to catching criminals and solving mortgage fraud cases. Peter put Jones temporarily in charge of his division. It was strange, handing over the reins, but he wanted to spend all his time finding Neal and he would be too distracted to work other cases. He felt confident that Jones would do a good job.

Indeed, Jones was overjoyed to get a chance to head up his own cases, not to mention the entire division, but he did a good job hiding that joy. He was worried about Neal, too, and knew that Neal's abduction was the only reason he was getting the opportunity, so he felt guilty relishing his new position in white collar.

Diana, Peter said, would work side to side with Peter to find Neal. Diana of course agreed to this in a heartbeat- not just out of loyalty to Peter, but also for Mozzie, and, of course, Neal. She'd never admit it to his face, but she liked Caffrey, and was upset at his disappearance.

Peter was feeling the most stress at the lost of his friend and partner. He was spending way too much time at work, and everyone was worried about him. But he wouldn't listen to them. He'd been this worried before, when Keller kidnapped El, and multiple times when Neal was in trouble. But never for this long. It was one thing to chase Neal. In Cape Verde, Peter was invested in finding him, but never really worried about him. He knew that wherever Neal was, he was having a grand time forging paintings and enchanting women. Even when Agent Collins came into the picture, Peter knew where Neal was and knew what Collins was capable of (although he was wrong- he never thought that Collins would actually hurt Neal. Nonetheless, he knew the worst thing that could happen to Neal was jail). This time, he didn't know who he was dealing with. And still no ransom… Peter felt powerless, which was not something he was used to feeling, nor something he enjoyed.

Then he got the text message.

* * *

_Thanks so much to those of you who have taken the time to read this! I'm sorry about the delay since the last chapter- my updates should be quicker now. I appreciate all of you who have stuck with the story and especially those of you who have commented. _


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

Neal was finally taken out of the trunk, and the zip-tie was cut. Abigail didn't look surprised, or mad, to see the hood and the hat had come off. Neal guessed she didn't really care, knowing that he couldn't do anything to sabotage the video without her finding out. She knew that in that trunk, with his hands behind his back, there was nothing he could've done.

As Neal stretched, feeling his joints crack from so long in the trunk, one of the guys handed him a bottle of water and some food. He took them, thankful that his skills were at least worth enough food to keep him alive, if not healthy.

"Welcome to Switzerland," Abigail said, throwing her hands up in the air. Neal looked around. He was in an alley, behind some kind of restaurant. He could smell the spoiled food in the dumpster.

As soon as Neal finished his measly meal, and chugged his water, Abigail grabbed his glasses from the trunk and handed them to him. "Let me see that Neal Caffrey smile," she said. "Let's go get me some money."

"And if I don't?" Neal asked. "I've been stuffed in a car twice, and I really don't want to try it a third time. I'm done."

"I don't think so." Abigail nodded at one of her men. He shifted slightly, so he was standing right in front of Neal, and put his hand on his hip, moving his jacket so that Neal could see the gun on its holster.

Neal never liked guns, and ones pointed towards him even less. But he put on a brave face. He was a con man, after all. "If you hurt me, I can't help you. You need me."

"You're right," Abigail said, a smile spreading across her face. "Which is why I left a couple of my friends back in New York. I believe you met one of them. He usually wears cowboy boots?" She paused, watching the horror unfurl on his face. Neal had guessed that she was connected to him somehow, but this was worse than he thought. "Mozzie, June, even Elizabeth and Peter. He's got tabs on them all, and I've got his number if you decide to try anything."

Neal took off his hat, and ran his fingers through his hair. He had no choice. Putting his hat back on, and his glasses, he steeled himself for what he knew was going to happen. "So. What's the plan?"

Abigail started walking out of the alleyway, and Neal followed. "Take this," she said, handing him an earpiece.

"More gifts? You shouldn't have."

"Just put it on. Through it I will give you all your instructions. Deviate in the slightest, and, well… you'll regret it later. Here we are." They turned the corner out of the alley, and found himself face to face with Switzerland. He couldn't help breathing in a slight gasp- it was gorgeous.

As they walked around the block, Abigail's men peeled off one by one and took places around the bank. Finally it was just Neal, Abigail, and one man standing outside the bank doors.

"Remember, Caffrey. I have eyes on the inside, and I have my friend in New York on speed dial. Do exactly as I say, and everything will turn out just fine." She turned and walked away, leaving Neal at the door of the most secure bank in the world.

When she disappeared into a van across the street, Neal pushed open the doors and walked into the bank. The man by his side walked across to the other side of the bank.

"Caffrey, if you can hear me, take your glasses off, then put them back on." Neal smiled slightly, because he realized his earpiece was a one-way transmitter- she couldn't hear him. He wiped his glasses on his shirt then put them back on.

"Ok, approach the counter. The third teller from the left. Tell her your name is Fitzpatrick Shorman, and that you want to visit you vault."

Neal walked up to the teller.

"How can I help you, sir?" the teller asked. She was very young and had long blond hair, and bangs that fell in front of her eyes every time she looked down at her computer. Under another set of circumstances, Neal would've considered trying to get her out for a drink.

"Hi," Neal said, flashing his trademark smile. "I need to get into my vault."

"Your name, sir?" she responded.

"Fitzpatrick Shorman," he said, hoping that his new name had weight. He hated not being able to choose his own aliases. The name 'Fitzpatrick,' didn't sound right on his lips. But apparently it was the right answer for the teller.

"Mr. Shorman!" she jumped up. "Of course! I'm sorry sir. Right this way."

"Please, call me Fitz." Neal followed her around a corner, and almost walked straight into a dark door with a keypad beside it. He bumped into the teller slightly, and reached into her pocket as he did, grabbing her phone with two fingers. He slipped it into his own pocket, careful not to look at it. His glasses showed Abigail everything he saw.

The teller punched in a six digit code: 418720. Neal, partially to distract the teller to keep her from seeing that he was watching, and partially because he was curious, asked her for her name.

"Elise Francis," she replied, slightly flustered. "It's my first week. I must admit, it seems unusual for such an important client to be so… informal with simple employees like me."

"What can I say?" Neal shrugged, smiling again. "I guess I'm an unusual guy."

He followed her through another locked door and then into the vault. Rows upon rows of sealed metal boxes lined the walls.

Elise turned to him. "Your vault number, sir?"

"Didn't I tell you to call me Fitz?" Neal asked, stalling for time. He had no idea which vault he was supposed to say. And Abigail couldn't hear him. Thinking quickly, he took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. Then he fixed his glasses. That had to get Abigail's attention.

Sure enough, her voice sounded in his ear. "The vault you want is number 264," she said, and Neal repeated it to Elise. "I'm about to tell you the combination, which she will ask for next. But tell her you want to open it yourself."

Elise had walked over to the vault, and asked for the combination.

"May I?" asked Neal, smiling innocently.

"Of course," Elise answered, slightly taken aback. She stepped away from the vault.

Neal walked over and put his hand on the lock, and as Abigail told him numbers, he turned his hand in accordance to open the lock.

As he finished putting in the combination, Abigail hissed, "Wait." He paused. "Inside is some money, and a rather large box. It has jewelry inside, but I don't need it. Take it out and hit that silly girl with it. She won't remember anything. You have to get rid of her to move on to the next stage."

Neal swallowed. He opened the vault, seeing the money and the box. It was a larger box than one would think was necessary for jewelry, and just wieldly enough to get a grip on it and slam it into someone's head. But he couldn't hurt Elise.

He turned, to look at her. "Elise," he said, giving an edge to his voice that he only uses in cons. "I think I need a moment to myself. The jewelry in here… it was my grandmother's. It just brings up memories that I'd rather deal with on my own." He sniffed slightly and blinked a couple times, as if trying to hold back tears.

"Of course," Elise said. She looked at him one last time before walking out, and closing the vault behind her. He was locked in.

"Idiot!" Abigail hissed. "She's going to know you're taking too much time."

Neal looked back at the vault, waiting for his next instructions. He saw a camera in the corner, but he assumed Abigail didn't care about it, as she didn't tell him to cover it. And he couldn't risk doing anything else she didn't want. She sounded so angry as is.

She spoke in his ear, and it was in an oddly calm voice that she said, "Now crack into the big vault at the end. All of the small ones are personal vaults, for important clients. But the big one…" she trailed off, and Neal didn't need her to big vault, he was sure, held the money that the government required a bank to have on them at all times; enough to make Abigail very rich. And with money, Neal knew, comes power.

But it was going to be hard. It was a huge safe, with a very sophisticated lock. Luckily Neal recognized it. He remembered the time he had to crack a similar one when he was left in a rather tight situation in London a few years back. Not that he'd ever tell Peter about that.

"Crack it, Caffrey," Abigail said in his ear. "Thanks to you, you don't have all day."

He put his ear against the metal door. It was cold, and he shivered slightly. Reaching into his pocket, he felt the phone he had taken from Elise, which steadied him. It was his only connection to Peter.

Slowly, but with practiced hands, Neal turned the lock. He had a knack for feeling when he had gotten a number, and the click on the metal was clear. He just had to get the three numbers without activating any of the false triggers. He knew there were two on that kind of safe, as he had experience with the shallower click of a false trigger.

Five minutes later, Neal was confident he had gotten the combination. He stepped back, somewhat excited, and opened the vault door. That moment, a shrieking alarm sounded, shocking Neal. But he had opened the vault, and inside was roughly, he guessed, about ten million dollars.

"Fitz?" Elise was banging on the door outside of the vault, scrambling to enter the code and get in. "Mr. Shorman?"

Abigail hissed in his ear. "Barricade the door so that girl can't get in. Do it!"

Neal looked around frantically for something to put in the door. He was in an entirely metal room, but there was nothing loose that he could stick in the door. He ran back to the vault he had opened first- Fitzpatrick Shorman's vault- and grabbed the jewelry box. Gritting his teeth, he pulled the handle off of the box and walked over to the door. He jammed the handle of the box into the door frame as hard as he could, then waited for more instructions from Abigail. But none came.

He was sure that she had left him, left him to get caught by the police and thrown in jail. It would be easy. If it were him and Peter coming to this bank, it would be the simplest case ever. A criminal standing in front of an open unbreakable safe? That would be too easy.

Not unlike how Neal set-up Abigail; she was caught with the sculpture and the flash drive. And now she was setting him up.

A minute passed, and the sirens were still sounding. Elise was still pounding at the door. And Neal was sure that Abigail had left.

But just in case, he took off his glasses and held them in front of him, so that Abigail would still think she was seeing what he was seeing. Then with the other hand, he took Elise's phone out of his pocket. He put in Peter's number, and typed a quick message: Abigail. Swiss Nat Bank. Help. Neal

As soon as he hit send, he heard a loud noise, much louder than the noises Elise had been making. It was followed by a voice. Neal slipped the phone back into his pocket and put on his glasses just in time. The door was forced open, and Interpol agents stormed into the room.

"Freeze! Put your hands in the air!" screamed the one in front. Instinctively, Neal put his hands in the air and drew away from the gun barrel pointing at his face. Then he looked past the gun and at the Interpol agent, and saw that it was none other than Abigail herself. The other agents were her henchmen.

Abigail strode over and yanked Neal's hands behind his back, handcuffing them tightly, and the metal dug into Neal's skin. She turned to one of her men standing by the door and gestured towards Elise. "Get her statement. Go."

The man turned and led Elise out of the vault room. She was looking, shocked, at Neal.

Abigail turned to her other men. "Get all of it," she said, as she walked over to cover the surveillance camera in the corner.

They walked past her and pulled bags out of their uniforms, tucked behind their bullet proof vests. Then they started systematically emptying the vault and loading the money into the bags.

Neal couldn't help but marvel at the plan. She got the information for a wealthy client, someone who would be let into the back room. She must've made sure that Neal spoke with the new, more naive teller, which ensured that his charm alone was able to get him into the vault. Then she had Neal open the safe, knowing fully well that it was unable to be cracked without setting off the alarm. So she re-routed the call to her van and took over as Interpol. As soon as someone realized that something strange was going on, Abigail and her team, and Neal, could be half-way across the world.

When all the money was taken out of the vault and put in the bags, Abigail's henchmen started walking out with them. They held the bags in the inside of their ring, so no one would see them if they weren't looking closely. Which Neal knew the wouldn't be, as everyone's eyes were on him.

Abigail marched him out of the bank, roughing him a little on the way. He wasn't sure if it was for show or if she just wanted to, but either way they were easily able to walk out of the bank and get into black, unmarked cars parked on the street.

The money was loaded into the back of the car, and Abigail put Neal in the backseat. Then she went around to the back to make sure everything was secure.

Neal was alone in the backseat. He seized his opportunity- he had to get rid of the phone, because Abigail was sure to find it and punish him or even someone back home for taking it. He slipped out of the handcuffs, ignoring the pain when they rubbed against his skin, and took the phone out of his pocket. He eased the door open slightly, looked over his shoulder, and he dropped the phone on the ground underneath the car. Then he closed the door and put the handcuffs back onto his wrists, just as one of the men got into the car on the other side. Then another opened the door Neal had just closed, and slid him over to the middle, squeezed between the two massive men. The first man pulled Neal's hat and glasses off of him, and handed them forward to Abigail, in the front seat. Then he slammed another hood over his face and, once again, Neal was helpless and in the dark.

* * *

_I don't really know anything about banks or how to conduct a robbery, but I tried creating a plan that seemed semi-reasonable. For all of you who do know how to properly rob banks, well... just go with it, I guess. And you scare me. _


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

_Abigail. Swiss Nat Bank. Help. Neal_

Neal.

"Jones! Diana! Conference room," he called. They came in immediately.

"Did you find anything?" asked Jones.

"I just got a message. From Neal," Peter said. He showed them the message.

"What does that mean?" asked Jones. "Swiss Nat Bank… the Swiss National Bank? What does that have to do with anything?"

"I don't know yet," Peter said. "Go check if there was any unusual activity in that area in the last couple days. Contact Interpol, to station someone there."

"On it," Jones said. He sat down to a computer, already typing.

"Abigail…" Peter turned to Diana. "The person who has him?"

"Must be," she said. "Do we have an Abigail on our list?"

"I don't think so," Peter responded. "Who is she?"

"Abigail," Diana muttered, turning over the name in her head. "Abi- Abigail!" she cried.

"You know who she is?" Peter asked.

"Do you remember the case at the museum, where Neal stole that mobile and gave it to a woman, but didn't take the flash drive in return? I went on a date with her," she said.

"Abigail, right. Go get her file," he said, and Diana left the room. When she returned, she had a last name. Peter typed in 'Abigail Kincaid' into his computer. It was an alias, he found, for a woman named Adrianne Parker. Sure enough, she escaped from prison two months earlier. "Thank you Neal," he muttered.

"Peter," called Jones. "You better take a look at this."

Peter and Diana went over to Jones's computer. It showed that the Swiss National Bank, which was supposed to be impossible to rob, was robbed just that day. Jones pulled up the surveillance video. It showed Neal opening the vault. His face was partially covered by a hat, but Peter knew it was him. Strangely, Peter watched as Neal looked at the open vault and reacted to the sirens, but then he didn't move. He didn't try to get out, nor did he take any money. He just took a phone out of his pocket, removed his glasses and held them in front of him, and then Peter watched as the door was broken open and Interpol agents streamed inside the vault. Then the video went black.

"So we should be searching Swiss prisons?" Diana asked.

"Wait," Peter said. Something seemed strange about this. Neal wouldn't be that careless. He would do something about the cameras. And why did he contact Peter with Abigail's name if she wasn't involved? And, of course, he would never go to pull this off without Mozzie. Not to mention that robbing a bank didn't seem to be his style- he had always gone for museums and artwork, never cash. "What does Interpol say about the case? Is it closed?"

"No," Jones said, confused. "It lists the suspect, Neal, and has no arrests recorded."

"Go back, and zoom in on the Interpol agents," Peter said. Jones froze the video where they banged open the door. Neal flinched, but didn't show a huge reaction. Jones zoomed in on the one in front. "Now run facial analysis," Peter said. Jones started the software, and they waited for an answer.

"Boss," Diana muttered as the picture was getting clear to her.

Facial recognition came back. It read 'Adrianne Parker.'

"Oh, Neal," Peter said, dropping heavily in a chair.

"What am I missing here, Peter?" asked Jones.

Peter explained that Abigail/Adrianne kidnapped Neal to use as a front man. They had him break into the bank and open the safe, because only he could, and then instead of figuring out how to get the money out and risk his escape, she came in posing as Interpol and arrested him. The police and Interpol arrived on site twenty minutes later, and they discovered that they money had vanished and the number that the impostor Interpol agents gave the manager was to a pay phone outside the bank. "And now she has Neal and millions of dollars."

"What do you think is her next move?" asked Diana.

"Well, she has a perfect front man," Peter said. "If she forces him to rob places or forge paintings, which clearly she can do, she can pull off almost anything. And if he gets caught, no judge would think he was forced to do it. That's why she must have left the footage of him opening the vault, before shutting it off when she took the money. Proof that he did it."

They rewatched the video surveillance to see if they missed anything. "Why does he do that with the glasses?" Diana asked.

Peter thought. Abigail would need a way to monitor Neal in the vault. She wouldn't rely on what he told her, she'd want to see the vault for herself. She could hack into the bank's cameras, but that wouldn't show her the inside of the vault. And she would definitely want to see that for herself, even before storming in. "A camera," Peter said. "She must've put a camera into the glasses, so she could see what he sees. And he took off the glasses to text me, because otherwise she would see what he was doing. Still, he took a risk doing it. If she saw…"

"Thank goodness he did it, though," Diana said. "Otherwise we'd still be sitting here with no leads."

Peter looked at Jones. "You should work on your own cases. Diana and I will find out everything Abigail, or Adrianne."

Jones nodded. He wanted to help, but he understood that wasn't his job right then. "Tell me if you need anything," he said. "I'll get the rest of the team in here, and you can fill them in."

Peter nodded. He knew they were in far better shape than ten minutes ago, but he couldn't help but feel lost. Where were they? They had surely fled Switzerland by then. What would she make Neal do next? And what would happen if he said no?

He got it together. He needed to brief his team.

"Ok people, listen up," he said when they got into the conference room. "Neal Caffrey was kidnapped by Adrianne Parker, alias Abigail Kincaid." He and Diana alternated, telling everyone what they knew. "The bottom line is that we don't know how he's being treated or what they'll hit next. We need to find him as soon as possible. This is more than just a kidnapping, now. The longer it takes to get him back, the more chances she has to steal whatever she wants."

"If she's forcing Caffrey to do what she wants, which seems to be the case, we're in trouble," Diana said. "They robbed the Swiss National Bank, which, need I remind you, is supposed to be impossible. Who knows what could be next?"

* * *

It had been a long day at work, and Diana was ready to go home and see her son. After insisting that Peter should go home (as she was sure that otherwise he'd spend the night in the office, searching for any signs of Caffery), she drove home. But she couldn't stop thinking of Caffrey. She wondered how he was taking everything. From the standpoint of an agent of the FBI, she hoped that he would stop stealing things, because it would certainly make her life easier. But as his friend, she wanted him to keep doing whatever Abigail asked him to do, even if it meant doing something illegal. The more he resurfaced, to steal a priceless work of art or money from a bank, the easier it would be to bring him home. And if he did try to put his foot down, or mess up a job, she was scared what Abigail would do to him.

This had to be so different than one of Caffrey's own cons, she mused. He'd have run of the plan then, instead of following someone else's instructions, and it would probably be a better plan. He and Mozzie- Mozzie! Diana had forgotten about him for a second. As she pulled into her driveway, she called him.

"Mozzie? It's Diana," she said. "I have news about Caffrey. Why don't you come over, and we can talk?"

Five minutes later, Mozzie showed up at her front door. He let himself in.

Without so much as an introduction, he asked "You have news?" and sat on her couch.

Diana marvelled at how much her opinion of him had changed over time. It used to be that she couldn't be in a five foot radius of him for more than a few seconds before she wanted to strangle him. But since he saved her life as well as Theo's, things between them had changed. She could tell that he felt different about her, too.

"Peter got a text from Neal today," Diana told him. She told him the text, and everything they had pieced together that day.

As soon as she finished, Mozzie pelted her with questions. "What time did the text come? How long was he in Switzerland? How much money was stolen? Where are they going next? Who is she working with? How did she escape from prison?" and it went on and on.

Diana let him spew until he had calmed himself down, and then kindly said, "Mozzie, we're going to find him, ok? I promise."

Mozzie rocked back and forth slightly on the couch.

"Do you want some wine?" Diana asked, trying to put him more at ease.

"I- I think I'll go home. Well, I'll go to June's. I'll work from my end and figure out what I can."

Diana knew nothing she could say was going to change his decision. "You'll let me know?" she asked. "If you find anything?"

"If?" Mozzie scoffed, sounding more like his usual self. "Anything a Suit can do, I can do better."

He walked out, tousling Theo's head on his way.

Mozzie left the house, and he kept thinking about what Diana had said. Neal was in Switzerland. He had just gotten Abigail a boatload of money. She didn't need to pull another job anytime soon, but then again, she might not want to wait long if she was holding Neal. The longer she had him, the longer she had to keep him healthy enough to run cons, but at the same time secured enough so he wouldn't run.

The Swiss National Bank. Not something Neal and Mozzie would choose on their own. Maybe if someone was keeping a valuable piece in the vault, but even then they probably wouldn't do it. Not much charm to robbing a bank.

Diana said that Interpol estimated Abigail got about ten million for that job. Not change, that's for sure, but also not all that much. Off the top of his head, Mozzie could think of plenty of other places to rob for more than that. And just one painting from a museum or art collectors mansion would be much more, as well as easier to steal and transport.

So why the bank? Then Mozzie realized, no one had robbed the Swiss National Bank before. Abigail wasn't just going for expensive, she was going for rare. And she was doing what they said couldn't be done. No, that's not right… _Neal_ was doing what they said couldn't be done.

So the next place they'd hit would be somewhere that had never been robbed before.

Delighted that he figured something out so quickly that could help his friend, Mozzie pulled out one of his phones to call Diana and tell her the news.

But as he dialed her number, he heard a faint clicking sound. He hung up, but kept the phone near his ear, so that he appeared to be on the phone. There it was again. It sounded like a camera. The sound was coming from behind him. Slowly he put away his phone and took off his glasses. He took out a polishing cloth, and held them out in front of him. In the reflection, he could just make out a man with dark black hair, holding a camera at his face and taking pictures of Mozzie. After Mozzie stood still for a minute, the man lowered the camera and Mozzie could see his features. The man started to walk away and Mozzie heard a clicking sound every time his shoe hit the ground. It was like he was wearing high heels, or cowboy boots or something.

When Mozzie was sure he was gone, he hurried off towards June's.

"June!" he called, the moment he walked into the door.

"Mozzie," June said. "It's so great to see you. It's been so quiet here in these past couple days." She was worried about Neal, but good at hiding her fears. She needed to be strong for Mozzie.

"June, I need to talk to you about something, but first I have to make a phone call," Mozzie said.

"Of course."

Mozzie headed upstairs to Neal's room. He poured himself a large glass of wine, and called Diana. The phone rang once, twice, and Mozzie tapped his foot impatiently. But Diana didn't pick up.

Mozzie groaned. He'd hoped he would never have to do this. He dialed a different number, and received a gruff, "Hello?"

"Suit! I figured something out," Mozzie said.

"Mozzie?" Peter sat up suddenly, as he had been laying on his couch, half-asleep, looking at Abigail's case file from the Kessman Museum robbery. "How do you have my phone number? Nevermind. What did you figure out?"

"The Swiss National Bank is not the most lucrative job," Mozzie said. "It would be much easier to steal something smaller, and worth more, than straight cash."

"So?" Peter asked.

"So," Mozzie explained, "she's not going for the money alone. She wants to rob places that have never been hit before. She's not necessarily choosing the most profitable places. She choosing the hardest."

"Why?" Peter asked.

"I don't know. To say she can? Maybe because eventually she wants Neal to be caught and to go to jail? Doesn't matter right now. We have to find him, and the best way to do that is to find out where she'll take him next."

"So where do you think that is?" Peter asked.

"Big museums, like the smithsonian, the acropolis, and the louvre, I think. No, the smithsonian job has been done. But if it were me, I would hit big museums."

"Thank you Mozzie!" Peter cried. "I'll get working right away at putting security around those museums."

"There is something else," Mozzie said. "There was someone following me as I left the Lady Suit's house."

"What are you talking about? Diana?"

"Yes. Keep up, Suit!"

"Can you describe him?" Peter asked.

"He was tall, had short black hair, a small little mustache, and he wore cowboy boots," Mozzie said.

"It might not have anything to do with Neal, and even if it does, that's not much to go on," said Peter.

"It was dark out!" snapped Mozzie.

Peter realized what he'd been through that night, finding out about who kidnapped Neal and then being followed. "I'm sorry Mozzie. Thank you. I'll run that description in the morning."

Mozzie paused. Then, "Thank you, Suit." He hung up.

Mozzie sat for a moment, thinking about Neal as he sipped his wine. They'd been in tough spots before, no doubt about that, but never for this long and apart from each other. At times he didn't know what to do with Neal, but Mozzie didn't know what he'd so without him.

June knocked on Neal's door, easing it open. "You wanted to talk to me?"

"Yes," Mozzie said, turning to face June. "I was walking over here, and I had a tail."

"Did you see who it was?" June asked, worried.

Mozzie repeated what he had told Peter.

June looked troubled. "Cowboy boots?" she asked. "And a small mustache? I think I have seen him before."

Mozzie sat up. "What?"

"Yes, he followed me when I walked home from my granddaughter's soccer game. I remember him from the shoes. They were awfully loud, especially for a tail."

"Was he taking pictures?" Mozzie asked.

"Well, he had a camera, I saw that. But I was talking with my granddaughter, and I didn't notice what he was taking picture of." She paused. "Does this have anything to do with Neal?"

"It might," Mozzie said. "Just be careful, June."

"You know I will. Goodnight, Moz," she said as she left the room.

Now Mozzie was really suspicious. It could've been anything, if only he was being followed. But June too, and he was worried.

His phone rang. It was Diana, calling him back from earlier. She was busy putting Theo to bed when he had called.

Mozzie updated her on the situation, including the fact that June was being followed. When they hung up, Mozzie decided it was better for him to spend the night there. If nothing else, he would be there for June.

* * *

Neal was locked in the dark room again. He wished he had taken a small piece of metal, or anything he could use to pick locks, but it wouldn't have mattered anyway. Abigail made him take off the suit when they got back- there was nothing he could've hidden away from her.

When she left him alone in the room, he started walking around the perimeter of it, as he had done the first time. He found that this cell was significantly smaller than the other one. It had looked the same with the lights on, but when he saw the big lock on the doorknob, he had a feeling they were in a different place. On top of that, he had felt that the car ride was really long. But it was better than the previous one. He couldn't see or speak, but at least he had a seat, no matter how cramped he was by the men on both sides.

Neal had no sense of time in the completely dark room. But after a while his mouth dried and he had constant hunger pangs in his stomach. He tried to pace when he was most hungry, but that became too taxing. He resigned to lie on the ground, still, and fighting to stay awake. He was too scared to fall asleep, scared that he wouldn't be able to wake up.

A couple times the door opened just a crack, a bottle of water rolled in. It was only full a little bit, and Neal knew it was just to keep him alive. She wasn't done with him yet.

Finally, three days after the Swiss Bank job, Abigail came in and the lights switched on. Neal flinched, and rose shakily to his feet.

"How are you, Caffrey?" Abigail said in mock concern. "A little hungry, maybe?"

Neal charged at her, so mad and weak that he thought he could actually hurt her. As he swung at her, she merely pushed him away and he fell to the floor.

"Your little detour at the bank didn't do me any favors," Abigail said, all playfulness gone from her voice. "That little twit that you left outside started asking questions. I hushed her up, but you did make things harder."

Neal glared at her. He only knew what she was willing to do by what she was doing to him, and he was scared that 'hushing her up' meant that she killed Elise. He hoped not.

"I have another job for you," Abigail said. "And don't even think of trying something tricky when you're out there." She walked out of the room for a second, and then came back in with a pile of papers in her hand. She threw them at Neal's feet. Stooping to pick them up, he saw that they were pictures. June and her granddaughter. Mozzie and Diana.

Abigail smiled at him, and for a second she looked like the red-haired thief that had gotten Diana to fall for her. Then she walked out of the room, leaving Neal inside with the pictures.

One of the muscles walked in. He handed Neal a plate of food and a bottle of water. Then he stood in front of the door, watching Neal eat hungrily. When he had finished, he took the plate and the bottle from Neal. He reached for the pictures, too, but Neal snatched them out of the way.

The man laughed softly, and reached up to his ear with his hand. Touching an earpiece, he asked, "Permission to beat up the prisoner?"

He paused, waiting for her response. Then he told Neal, "Keep them. Let them remind you of what you stand to lose." Neal had no doubt those were Abigail's words. And the fact that he hadn't told her about Neal keeping the pictures wasn't lost on him. Abigail was watching.

He stood up, keeping the pictures close to him. "What, you going to let me rob some place in this?" he asked, gesturing to his undershirt and shorts.

"You're not stealing anything yet," the man said. "Follow me."

He walked out of the room and Neal followed. His bare feet were cold on the hard floor, but he ignored that.

They walked for a minute, and Neal could see they were in a more sophisticated underground hideout. He remembered the turns they took: left, left, and then right. He also internalized every detail he saw. There were four men that he passed, and no writing on the walls or anything to give him a clue of where he was. They only passed one other door. This, he assumed, had to be the room with the cameras, where Abigail could watch his every move. He knew this because the biggest guard was standing right outside of it.

The man in front of Neal stopped, and opened a door. He let Neal walk in first.

When Neal stepped inside, his jaw dropped. He was standing in a forger's dream. He was surrounded by paint, brushes, and canvas. He could tell the paint was old enough to pass a screening. He touched the canvas, eyed it closely, and could tell that it was made hundreds of years ago. He couldn't imagine where the'd gotten the materials from, but he knew he'd love to use them. Even Mozzie would have trouble finding a canvas this good.

And all over the walls there were pictures from all angles in all kinds of light of a painting he knew very well. He looked back at the man incredulously. "You want me to steal Liberty Leading the People from the Louvre?"

The man acted as if he hadn't heard Neal. "Paint that. Make it perfect. You have two days." He walked out of the room and slammed the door.

The first thing Neal did was check the door. It was locked, or course. Then he turned around and gave his full attention to the paints behind him. He walked around the room once, twice, surveying what he had to work with. As he did so, he noticed more cameras in each corner of the room.

Finally, Neal had a plan.

First, he started moving everything around. The canvas went to the very center of the room, and he pasted the pictures of the painting on the wall he would be facing while he painted. Then he moved all the tables around so they made a box around him. The paints went on his left, the paint brushes on his right, and a towel directly behind him. His canvas finished the box around him, and he sat on his stool in the middle. Finally, he lay the pictures of Mozzie, June, and Diana on the desk behind him. He wondered for a moment why there wasn't a picture of Peter, but he assumed it was because he was safe, and not being followed. He breathed a little easier at that thought. Although he loved Mozzie and June and everyone in his life, he wasn't lying back when he'd told Peter that was the only one he fully trusted with every aspect of his life. He was closer to Peter than he was to even Mozzie. Than he used to be with Kate. Neal wondered where Peter was. Did they find out about the Swiss Bank job? Was he able to track Neal?

Of course Peter found out about it. He was Peter, after all. He'd never failed at finding only question was if he could find Abigail's little bunker in time. If not, Neal just had to rob the Louvre.

Which had never been done.

Neal picked up a small brush, put some paint on it, and started working. Almost instantly, he felt better. He was free while he was painting, and wasn't worried about Abigail any more. His job was to make an exact copy of Liberty Leading the People. Well, almost exact.

Neal assumed he was two hours into his forgery. The ground work on the canvas was done, and Neal was taking his time. A piece like this, he could do in six hours or so if he wanted to. But Abigail gave him two days. Why not take that long? Clearly she didn't know anything about painting or forgeries. Which was all the better for Neal.

He started holding multiple brushes in his hand while painting. He had never done this before, but he acted naturally, as if it was perfectly normal. Then, with his left hand, he took a small paintbrush, with no paint on it, and kept it under the table to his left. From the angle of his body and where he placed the tables, he knew that none of the cameras would be able to see his left hand. Then, painstakingly, he started to peel away the metal part of the brush. He couldn't drop the brush, but he also couldn't take his focus away from the canvas. If Abigail was watching, and he had to assume she was, she would be suspicious. After a long time of picking at the metal and doing his best to transfer brushes only using his right hand, Neal had gotten the metal band off from the brush. Quickly, with the ease and swiftness only a practiced con man and pick-pocket had, he slipped the metal into the waistband of his underwear. It poked into his skin, but he ignored it. Then he stood up to put more paint onto his brushes. As he did so, he stuck the small paintbrush that was now ruined into the bottom of the blue paint. He used another brush to push it to the bottom. Neal just had to hope that Abigail didn't see the need for the paint after this, and would throw them away without seeing the brush. Neal cleaned his hand off with a towel, and saw that the nails on his left hand were rubbed down and chipping, and one was bleeding. He hadn't noticed in his concentration. The blood just looked like red paint on the towel, but Neal needed to cover for the nail. Continuing to hold the brushes in his right hand, Neal started biting the nails on his left hand. That would give cause for their sudden shortening in length.

After many more hours of working and examining his work and comparing it to the pictures on the wall, Neal was almost done. The man had only come in once, to give Neal a bottle of water and some crackers. He stood by the wall, but Neal had told him he couldn't paint with someone looking over his shoulder. It worked, and the man left.

With just the flag left to do, Neal took a small brush, smaller than the one he had taken apart, and pulled out some of the bristles. He added detail to the woman's face, and then leaned in really close to the painting. In the corner, where a man was lying, dead, he started painting on the hat that had fallen off. With tiny brush strokes, not visible unless one knew where to look, and even then it would be hard to see, Neal wrote "AK." He knew Abigail Kincaid, the name Abigail used when she came to New York, was only an alias, but it was all he had. He hoped that someone, hopefully Interpol or even a foreign branch of the FBI, would see the letters and figure out who it was. But he also couldn't let Abigail see the letters. He looked at the pictures of Mozzie, June, and Diana. They gave him strength, and he put the finishing touches on his masterpiece. Then he stepped back to admire his work. It was perfect. He was almost sad about putting Abigail's initials on it, instead of his own. But he knew that all the evidence had to point back to her, not him.

The door banged open, and Abigail walked in, with all her henchmen. "I'm impressed, Caffrey," she said, circling the painting. "Looks just like the real one. Some time in the oven, and no one will tell the difference."

Neal shifted slightly to one side, and moved his hand slowly towards the red paint container. "You like it, do you?" he asked. "Well, I'll let you have it." He was playing with her, injecting confidence in his voice he didn't think he had. "With one condition."

She laughed, seemingly enjoying his nerve. But her words were ice cold. "I don't think you're really in the best situation to set conditions. Or do the people in those pictures not matter to you anymore?"

"I need assurances that you won't hurt them. Or won't give the orders to hurt them. They need to be safe. Call your guy with the cowboy boots, and tell him to get over here with you and to leave my friends alone."

"Or what?" she smirked.

In response, Neal held up the red paint container, and tilted it so it was almost coming out. He held it over his perfect painting. "Or no Liberty Leading the People."

Abigail froze. Neal knew she needed the piece to be perfect in order for her plan to work, and she wouldn't give up on the plan. But she needed her man in New York, because otherwise she'd have no leverage to make Neal do as she wanted him to. She knew by then that he would fight her for his escape if his friends weren't at risk.

He started to smile, knowing he had her. But then she started laughing. A loud, high pitched laugh that echoed in the small room. She laughed and laughed, and Neal stared at her. Was he missing something? He was so confused that his concentration broke for a split second, his hand moved, and the paint wasn't poised on the edge of the container anymore. Seeing this, the man behind Neal leaped forward and grabbed the container, pulling it up and out of Neal's hand. Another man grabbed his arms, pinning them behind his back, and pulled him away from the painting.

Abigail walked up to him, and landed a strong punch in his gut. Once. Twice. Not enough to do real damage, just enough to send a message. Then she smirked. "Good try," she said. "Now put on your suit. You're going to rob a museum."

She walked out, and the man holding Neal practically carried him back to his original cell. His suit was waiting for him, as were the hat and the glasses.

Neal put them on, not letting the piece of metal slip from his waistband. He might have failed at ruining the painting, but he still had his makeshift lock pick. His suit was now considerably big on him. He was losing weight, and he had not slept in a while. Both were starting to weigh on him. _Peter, sooner would be better than later, _he thought.

The zip tie was fastened around his wrists, and Neal was led out into the world.

* * *

_Long chapter, I know. I promise some action in the next one. Thanks for reading!_


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

The Louvre was right ahead of him. Neal had been there before, of course, but that was before the thing with Alex and after the thing with Kate. And without Mozzie. He had obviously put together a con to rob it, but it had never happened. He had been too interested in the music box.

Abigail cut his zip-tie and gave him the hat and glasses. Neal put them on and stretched. He was stiff from being in the back of the car, but he also wanted to make sure his little impromptu lockpick was still in place. A sharp prick near his left hip told him it was.

Abigail gave him an earpiece and warned him not to deviate at all from the plan. She didn't need to bring up the pictures- Neal knew exactly what would happen if he didn't listen. There would be no letting himself get caught. Even if Peter could convince Interpol that he had been forced to steal the money and the painting, it wasn't worth putting Mozzie and June in danger.

Abigail and her buddies had walked away, and Neal knew he had to start moving. He grabbed the briefcase from the ground, where Abigail had left it for him, and entered the museum.

He flashed his winning smile at the security guard, who was luckily a girl, and saw her blush slightly. As she took his briefcase, he started talking to her.

"The name's Nick Halden," he said. "And yours?"

"Camille," she responded, trying to remain professional. She opened his briefcase to search the contents.

"Hello, Camille," he said. She had just picked up a file folder. If she looked below it for more than a second, she would see the forged painting. "You have a little piece of fluff on your sleeve." He reached over and took it off, brushing her slightly as he did so. With his left hand, he gently pulled her security pass from her waist. It worked. Heart beating from the touch, she didn't notice the missing security pass or the painting in the briefcase.

"Thank you, sir." She smiled innocently.

Neal felt bad for her. He had exploited her to get what he needed. That was what he did, but he still felt bad for doing it.

"Alright, Caffrey. Go to the stairs," Abigail said in his ear. "There's no time for socializing."

Neal walked over to the stairs, and climbed a flight, true to Abigail's orders.

"Do you remember what I did at the Kessman to get the alarms to go off? Fix your glasses if you do."

Neal remembered watching on the surveillance video how she paid the boy twenty dollars to touch a piece to see if the alarms were working. He fixed his glasses, jostling them enough to communicate with Abigail.

"Good," Abigail said. "What you need to do is pay a small child to touch a painting in another gallery, next door. When the alarm goes off they'll clear the floor, maybe even the building, and you'll have two minutes exactly to switch the paintings before they catch you. There was extra security downstairs, though, so maybe even less time," she added, almost as an after thought. "I put a twenty dollar bill in your jacket pocket. And don't even think of not switching the paintings. I'll know if the one you bring back is a fake."

Neal didn't doubt this. She wouldn't personally be able to tell the difference, but it wouldn't be hard to find someone who did. Come to think of it, she probably even made a mark on the back or something so she wouldn't need another person to come in and check it out.

As he put his hand on the door handle, he heard, "Caffrey… don't get caught." It sounded more like a threat than it did advice.

Neal pulled open the door and walked inside. Straight in front of him was the stunning "Liberty Leading the People." It looked exactly like the one Neal had just painted. He walked up to it and looked at it, as if he were just another tourist. Then he checked his watch, and walked away from it. He walked into the room next door. There was a class in there, all with little kids wearing uniforms and backpacks, taking notes on what they were seeing. There was one kid who was lagging behind, clearly not interested in the artwork. He looked to be about seven years old.

Neal walked up to him. He bent down next to him. "Not an art student?" he muttered.

The boy turned to look at him. "Art is boring. I don't care what people painted hundreds of years ago. I could be home playing video games right now."

Neal smiled. "You know what would get you out of here faster?" he said.

The had the little boy's full attention.

"Go touch one of the paintings. Like that one, over there." He gestured to a painting farthest from the door to the other room. "Just touch the frame."

The boy frowned. "Won't I get in trouble?"

Neal smiled. "No one will know. How about I give you ten dollars?"

The boys eyes widened. But then he seemed to think twice. "I don't want detention again."

"How about twenty?"

Neal pulled the bill out of his jacket pocket, looking all crisp, and handed it to him. "Just wait twenty seconds before you do."

The boy nodded, and Neal walked away.

About twenty seconds later, an alarm rang loudly throughout the museum. The security guards rushed in from all sides, to go see what was wrong. Neal slipped behind them and into the other room. He waited inconspicuously for all the worried tourists to leave, and then walked right up to the painting. He only had a minute.

Neal looked at the frame, wondering if Abigail would get mad if he sliced the painting to get it out of the frame. His answer came as soon as Abigail noticed his hesitation.

"The frame is not bolted on the wall, it just has a very sensitive alarm system. But because the alarm is already going off, you can take it off and no one will notice until it's too late," she said.

Neal got to work. It was surprisingly easy to take the frame off the wall. He had expected more from such a prestigious museum. Nevertheless, he was glad, and quickly got to work taking the painting out of the frame. Within a minute he had gotten it off, and put it in his briefcase. He took out the forged one just as he heard more voices on the stairs. They must've realized something else was happening. They wouldn't give this much attention to a little boy touching a frame. When he unrolled the forged painting, he noticed a signature on the back. It read 'Neal Caffrey,' in handwriting that was most definitely not his own. There was no time to try to make it unreadable. She really did make sure that she wouldn't go down for this. Anyone inspecting the painting would see his name before they saw Abigail's initials. If they saw that at all.

He got the forged picture into the frame and hastily hung it on the wall. At least at the first impression it would appear that everything was in order. He looked around quickly for somewhere to hide. The voices were just outside the door. And they didn't sound like museum security. They sounded more organized, professional. They sounded like Interpol.

Neal's heart started racing. He didn't trust that Interpol, even with Peter's insistence, would let him walk after stealing a painting from the Louvre. If they knew about the bank in Switzerland, that wouldn't make things any better. Where could he go?

The whole room was open, so everyone could see all the artwork. There was no place to hide, and no place to leave other than the room in which he had told the boy to touch the artwork. But it seemed at the moment that it was the lesser of two evils.

He quickly took off his hat and ruffled his hair a little. He instantly heard, "Caffrey! Put the hat back on!" But he had to ignore Abigail. He'd have to deal with the punishments, as long as he could first get out of the museum. He held onto his hat and briefcase with one hand, and wrenched open the door to the other room. He ran inside, looking slightly insane, and started panting.

The museum workers in the room were attending to the painting the boy touched, checking to see if it had to be taken down and restored. They all turned when he burst in.

"Matt!" Neal cried, looking around. "Has anyone seen my son, Matt? He wanted to run ahead of me, so I let him, because I needed to call his mother. She'll be so mad if I can't find him… I'm supposed to bring him home in an hour…" Neal trailed off. The workers were still looking at him, unsure of what to do. Neal decided it was time to leave before the Interpol agents figured out what happened in the other room. "If you see him, tell him daddy's looking for him, and bring him to the front of the museum. Thank you!" And he ran off, quite proud of his worried father act, seeing as he couldn't even remember someone acting like a father in regards to him. Well, that wasn't true. Peter acted like that. But that was different.

As Neal got out of the room, he jammed his hat back on his head. He stopped running and slowed his breaths down. He needed an exit that wouldn't put him in the middle of the museum, as that would look too suspicious. After all, he was supposed to have exited when the alarms initially went off. It only took him a minute to locate a service exit, with a staircase leading down to the outside of the museum. He pulled out the security card he'd taken from Camille, and slid it in the scanner for a moment. It beeped, turning green, and he slid into the staircase, leaving the security card behind on the ground. He had hardly taken two steps out on the street when one of Abigail's men came up to him and grabbed the briefcase out of his hand. He spoke into an earpiece, and almost instantly, all of Abigail's men appeared around him. They walked him over to the car he came in, and shoved him inside. One of them zip-tied his hands, again. Abigail was already in the driver's seat. She opened the briefcase to see its contents, closed it again, and started driving.

The man sitting directly to Neal's left grabbed Neal's hat and glasses. Neal prepared himself to have the hood slammed over him again, when a phone rang. It echoed in the car for a moment, as each person checked their pockets. Finally Abigail realized it was her's. She picked it up. "Hello?" She paused. "Hang on." Abigail pulled over the car, and turned to the man in the passenger seat. "Take him inside," she said. Neal saw she had stopped at a nice looking hotel. She didn't seem to care where they were, just that Neal wasn't around to potentially eavesdrop on her conversation. The call must be important.

Neal was pulled into the hotel, and up to the front desk. Abigail's biggest guard spoke to the woman at the front desk. "This man is a hostile witness in an investigation. He needs to be put in a secure, empty room while I confer with my supervisor outside. Where can I put him?"

The woman stared at him for a second. "Are you the police?" she asked skeptically.

"Interpol," the man grunted. "Do I have to charge you with obstruction of justice, or hostility to an Interpol agent?"

The woman looked slightly shocked, but recovered quickly. She led him and Neal to a small room with a sign reading "employees only." She unlocked it and the man shoved Neal into an empty space that was the room. The man slammed the door, and Neal heard the lock click.

Neal smiled. It reminded him of when Peter had tried to keep him locked in a room, out of the way.

Without hesitating, Neal grabbed the small strip of metal out of his waistband. But as much as he tried to stretch his fingers to cut the zip-tie, he couldn't reach. Frustrated, he dropped the strip of metal. It would do no good getting out if his hands were tied.

He tried something else. He tightened the zip-tie around his wrists with his teeth until it was so tight it hurt, and he felt like he was losing circulation in his fingers. Then, gritting his teeth, he slammed his wrist hard against his hip bone. He bit his lip to keep from crying out, and then looked down at his hands in amazement. The zip-tie had broken, having been pulled so tight that it literally snapped upon contact. Alex had told him that she'd done that when she was caught in a sticky situation in Egypt. He had assumed she was making it up, but it seemed to work.

Quickly, Neal found the strip of metal on the ground that he had dropped. Ignoring his throbbing wrists and hip, he shaped it into as best a pick as he could, and got to work on the lock. In just a few seconds, he heard the click that told him he was successful.

There would be no knowing if the woman at the desk was watching. Neal would just have to make a run for it.

He opened the door slightly, slipped out quietly, and started running.

* * *

_My knowledge of how to rob museums is about as advanced as my knowledge of how to rob banks. Again, if you know better, just go with it. Thanks for reading!_


	7. Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

Peter got into work the next morning early, before anyone else had arrived. Making himself a quick cup of coffee in his favorite mug, he went up to his office to continue where he had left off the night before. He was searching Mozzie's lead on the man who'd been following him. On Mozzie's description alone he didn't find anything, but then Diana mentioned that Mozzie had told her that the man was following June, too. He knew then it couldn't be a coincidence- it had to be about Neal. He had a sketch artist go to June's home and both Mozzie and June described him the best that they could (Mozzie would never come in to talk to a sketch artist).

This was much more than he'd been able to do since the text message came in and they figured out who had Neal. He had tried to trace Neal's text, with no luck. And even if he could, he was sure it would lead to a phone that was left in a garbage can or on the street near the Swiss National Bank. He'd also kept tabs on Adrianne, or Abigail, but she hadn't shown up anywhere since her prison escape. After reading all of her files, and every scrap of information that the FBI and Interpol had on her, he was no closer to finding where she could be keeping Neal. He also did as Mozzie requested- he got Interpol agents stationed at every major museum in the world that had not been robbed before. He gave them all Adrianne's picture, but a dated one, from when she was Abigail. He was sure she'd be using a disguise if she showed herself near any of them. He also had to give them Neal's picture, which worried him slightly. If they caught Neal stealing a piece and hauled him away for questioning without notifying the United States FBI, he could go down for crimes that weren't really his fault. But Peter felt he didn't have a choice- Interpol was his best shot at finding Neal.

An email popped up on Peter's screen. It was information about the mystery-man, who Mozzie had taken to calling 'Cowboy Boots.' They ran facial recognition on the sketch, and a match turned up for a man named Jacob Bage. He had a rap sheet of money laundering, kidnapping, and theft. Peter knew he was involved, he just had to figure out exactly how.

Diana got to the office and went straight up to see Peter, before even stopping at her desk. She knew how obsessed he had become with Neal's case, and while she couldn't blame him for it, she had to make sure he was ok, too. "Boss?" she asked as she opened his door. "How is everything? Do we have any new information?"

Peter showed Diana the picture of Cowboy Boots. "This is the man who was taking pictures of Mozzie and June. His name is Jacob Bage."

Diana looked at his information. "Quite a rap sheet, he's got. Should we bring him in?"

"Not yet," Peter said. He looked like he wanted to, but the agent in him knew he couldn't take it too fast without evidence to back up his warrant. "We have to find a reason to keep him here, first. And something to get him to flip on Abigail."

"I'm on it," Diana said. She got a cup of coffee and then headed to the conference room, adding Cowboy Boots's face and profile to the wall of information they had on Neal. The timer they had read that it was well past six days when he was kidnapped. She stared at his face, posted on the middle of the wall. "Caffrey, where are you?" she muttered.

She sat down to work, but then realized she should be updating Mozzie. She'd told him that whenever new information came in, she'd call him immediately.

"Diana?" Mozzie said when he picked up the phone. It was a nice change from 'Lady Suit.'

"Mozzie, we have a name and picture for Cowboy Boots. His name is Jacob Bage, and he has a rap sheet as tall as Theo."

"Jacob Bage… I've never heard his name before. He's not connected with Neal's past. You think he's just one of Abigail's muscles?"

"Most likely," replied Diana. "I'm sending over a picture now. It has more details than the sketch from the other day. Call me if it sparks anything, ok?"

"Got it," Mozzie said. They hung up.

Diana had barely put the phone down when it rang again. It was Mozzie.

"Moz?"

"I've seen him before!" Mozzie exclaimed, almost screaming into the phone. "That _has_ to be the guy who kidnapped Neal. He was sitting near the waterfront in New York the day Neal disappeared!"

"Whoa, Mozzie, slow down." Diana walked over into Peter's office. She put Mozzie on speaker. "Ok, say it again, but slowly. I'm with Peter now. Explain where you've seen him."

"The day Neal disappeared, he and I went for a walk on the waterfront. We were talking, and then I left to… well, I had an appointment. As I walked away, I saw a man reading a newspaper, and he was wearing cowboy boots. I caught a flash of his face as I walked right by him."

Peter interjected. "Mozzie, are you sure it's the same guy?"

"Suit, I have perfect recall. Of course I'm sure," Mozzie said.

"So how come you didn't see Neal get kidnapped, if they were both right there at the same time?" Diana asked.

"Maybe Cowboy Boots followed Neal before taking him? I don't know. But I only walked for about two minutes before I got to the street, and from there it would be hard to hear anything. There's always tons and traffic, and honking, by that park."

"Diana, do you think there are security cameras anywhere in that park?" Peter asked.

"I'll check right now, boss," she said, and she took the phone with her out of Peter's office. Mozzie told her exactly where Neal was in the park last time they'd spoke, and where Cowboy Boots was.

"Thank you, Mozzie," Diana said. "This should get us much closer to finding him."

When Mozzie hung up, Diana started pulling video from all the cameras in the area around the park. After an hour of watching feeds of random pedestrians, she found what she was looking for.

Cowboy Boots was caught on camera walking into the park. Twenty minutes later, he got in the drivers seat of a van, and it pulled out of the park at high speeds. Diana used a patchwork of cameras in the area to follow the truck as it drove away. Three surveillance cameras later, she saw something interesting. She couldn't tell exactly from the angle, but it looked like something flew out of the van. Diana pulled up the feed from the traffic camera and zoomed in. Sure enough, just before crossing the intersection, she saw an arm stick out of the driver's window, and throw something small and black into a passing truck. She went back, froze the frame, and zoomed in. It indeed looked like Neal's anklet. She grabbed a file from the table and opened it. Rifling through it, she found the information on the truck that Neal's anklet was found in. The license plate number matched the one she saw on the traffic cam.

"Peter!"

Peter came into the conference room.

"Boss, look at this."

Peter leaned over and Diana played the three surveillance videos for him, ending with the matching license plate numbers.

"Good work, Diana. That's enough for a warrant, maybe even an arrest. We just have to find him now, and bring him in."

"Any idea where he might be?"

Peter smiled. "I think I have a plan."

* * *

Mozzie didn't like being followed. Not by other criminals, and definitely not by the FBI. But by keeping his thoughts on Neal, he was able to not complain, or at least not complain too much, as he put a government watch around his wrist, equipped with a recorder, transmitter, and GPS. Then he put an earpiece in. It was not Neal's anklet, but he still felt like he was on a leash.

"Alright, Mozzie," a voice said in his ear as he stepped outside of June's house. "We've got eyes on you."

Mozzie ignored him, and kept walking down the street.

He stopped at a small shop three blocks away from June's house a bought a small cup of tea.

Then he kept walking, checking his watch as if he had somewhere to be.

He kept thinking this was the most boring con he'd ever been a part of. But then he noticed Cowboy Boots, walking thirty paces behind him. Mozzie reached up and scratched his ear, saying into the watch "You see him?"

Peter responded in his ear. "Yes. Keep walking, there's an alley forty feet in front of you."

Mozzie kept walking, and he heard the small clicks of a camera as Cowboy Boots documented Mozzie's actions. Mozzie wondered why the man took pictures of him. It seemed pretty unrelated to Neal.

Mozzie turned into the alley, and then hid behind a garbage can. This wasn't the plan, and he knew that, but he couldn't help himself. He was so mad, so sick of not being able to help Neal. And he still didn't believe that the Suits would be able to get enough information out of Cowboy Boots.

So when he heard Cowboy Boots turn into the alley to follow him, he stayed hidden behind the dumpster. He waited until Cowboy Boots had passed the dumpster, shoes clicking loudly against the pavement, and then he mustered all his anger and jumped out, yelling at him. Mozzie jumped on top of Cowboy Boots, surprising him and bringing him to the ground. He heard the Suit's voice in his ear, telling him they were on their way, but he ignored them. Cowboy Boots tried to wrestle himself free, but Mozzie stayed firmly on top of him.

"Where's Neal?" Mozzie yelled at him. This wasn't how he usually operated, but he needed the information. "Tell me where your friend is keeping him!"

Cowboy Boots grinned smugly, knowing Mozzie could never get him to talk. Mozzie realized why he always wore cowboy boots- he thought he was invincible.

That's when Mozzie realized that the Suits actually could get him to talk. The only way he would reveal information is if it could get him something he needed. Mozzie had nothing to offer him.

The Suits came running down the alley, guns out. Mozzie got up, muttering to Cowboy Boots, "Have fun in prison." Then, without anyone noticing, he slipped away, leaving the watch and the earpiece on the ground. He'd talk to Diana later to hear what they found, and he was in no mood to be lectured by the Suit.

Peter saw that Cowboy Boots was put in a car before turning to talk Mozzie. But when he looked around, he didn't see him anywhere. After the success of the sting, Peter couldn't help but smile a little. Why would Mozzie stick around to talk? It reminded him of when Neal would slip out, off-anklet, after a case. Peter missed Neal, and as he got back into the municipal van, he swore to break Cowboy Boots if that's what it took to find Neal.

* * *

Cowboy Boots was a smirker. And Diana _hated_ the smirkers. She'd dealt with smirkers before in the interrogation room, but this one was personal. Neal was involved.

She'd made sure that Jones told Peter to let her in the room. She had seen Peter's eyes as he looked at Cowboy Boots, and she was seriously scared that Peter would hurt him. And as much as she wanted Cowboy Boots in pieces for taking Neal, it wouldn't do Neal any good to have Peter temporarily suspended.

"Where is he?" Peter was demanding, angrily. "Where is Neal? What did you do with him?"

Cowboy Boots didn't answer. "I want to talk to my lawyer."

"Answer the question first," Diana said. "We have you on camera, kidnapping Neal Caffrey and destroying government property. If you tell us where he is, where your partner Adrianne Parker is keeping him, we might be able to shorten your jail time." Diana sounded like Peter.

Cowboy Boots finally reacted. He didn't know they had anything against him. If we was actually facing jail time, he would do anything, even betray his boss, to get out of it. But he had to make sure they had something first. "I need to call my lawyer."

Peter started to say something, but Diana cut him off. She took her phone out of her pocket, and slid it across the table to him. "Go ahead."

Cowboy Boots glared at her. He seemed to realize that he wasn't going to get another chance. He picked up the phone. Diana and Peter watched as he dialed, and held the phone up to his ear.

"This is Jacob Bage. No, listen. I'm at the FBI. They're claiming I kidnapped a guy. They're claiming they have video footage of it. I need you. I need my lawyer." He paused. "Yes." Another pause. "No. No, I'm serious!" He hung up.

As Diana reached over to grab the phone back, but Cowboy Boots was too smart to just hand it back. He threw it on the ground and stepped on it. Peter flew around the room and restrained him, but it was too late. He destroyed the phone, and with it Diana's lead.

As some guards lead him away, Diana pulled out a chair from the table and say on it heavily. She put her head in her hands. "I let him do it," she said miserably. "I knew he wasn't going to call a lawyer, he's too smart for that. I thought I was going to get Abigail's number. So that we could track her, figure something out about her... But I underestimated him." She slammed her hands on the table in anger and stood up, practically shouting. "Never underestimate a criminal! That's the rule! And now Caffrey... Caffrey..." She sank back into the chair, looking defeated.

Peter looked at her. She's always been the rational one, and he'd never seen her fall apart, except for when she was pregnant. He would like to comfort her, but he knew nothing he could say would change what just happened. And after two weeks of not finding anything, he couldn't even comfort himself. Now that Abigail knew Cowboy Boots was going to jail, would she take her anger out on Neal? Would he get hurt because of their mistake?

Peter couldn't get those thoughts out of his head.

That is, until he got the phone call.

* * *

_Just two chapters left. I promise in the next one you'll find out what happened to Neal when he ran. Thanks for reading!_


	8. Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

Neal had slipped by the front desk of the hotel with surprising ease. He was lucky that the woman at the desk was on the phone, her back turned, and that there was no one else in the lobby. The man who had dragged Neal inside must've gone out to help Abigail with whatever the phone call was about.

Neal quickly found a back door out of the hotel, and ran onto the street. All he knew was that he was somewhere in the middle of Paris, and that his first priority was to get as far away from Abigail as possible.

Neal ran, past crowds of tourists and couples holding hands. He didn't recognize his surroundings, but just kept running. There was no use trying to be inconspicuous. The faster he went, the better. He is lungs felt like they were about to explode. He was out of shape and weak from the lack of food and sleep and exercise he'd had lately. But he had to ignore that. He had to keep running.

Finally Neal ran out of breath and absolutely had to stop. He slowed down to a walk. But as he passed a group of people waiting in line outside a nice looking restaurant, he bumped into one of them, muttering "Desole" as he went.

Neal walked around a bakery and found an alley with good visibility of the street. He tried to ignore the pain in his hip, and he got his breathing under control. He pulled out the phone he had just taken from a man on the street, and dialed Peter's number.

He picked up immediately. "Hello?"

"Peter!"

"Neal! Neal, are you ok? Where are you?" Neal could hear the relief in his voice, and he was sure it was echoed in his own. Just hearing Peter's voice made him feel better than he'd felt since the whole ordeal had started.

"Peter, listen." Neal knew he needed to help Peter so that Peter could help him. "The woman who's behind all this, is Abigail Kincaid from the Kessman robbery last year. I don't know her real name-"

"It's Adrianne," Peter said. "Adrianne Parker."

Neal felt a rush pride in Peter. He really was the best FBI agent ever.

Peter continued. "Her accomplice, Jacob Bage, was taking pictures of Mozzie and a few others here in New York. He's the man who always wears Cowboy Boots, and the one that kidnapped you."

"Yeah, she's been using those pictures to threaten me," Neal said. "Do you have him? When she sees I'm gone, if she hasn't already, she'll probably call him. I don't want anyone-"

"Don't worry," Peter said. "He's in jail. He did make a call though, to someone he claimed was his lawyer."

"That must've been the call Abigail got. Thank goodness for that, or I wouldn't have been able to run."

Peter nodded at Diana. He was on speaker in the interrogation room, and Diana heard what Neal had said. Relief showed clearly on her face.

"Neal, where are you?" Peter asked.

"I'm somewhere in Paris. Abigail just had me rob the Louvre. She's got 'Liberty Leading the People.' You've got to find her with it, or I'll go down for it. And the bank heist too."

Neal started to explain, but Peter cut him off. He needed to know exactly where Neal was. "Can you tell me anything else?" He asked. "Where exactly are you? Where's Abigail's base?"

Neal started to answer, when he heard a deep voice yelling on the street. He took a quick peak and saw that it was one of Abigail's men. He was alone, and clearly didn't have any idea where Neal was. But there were surely more of her goons around.

"Peter," Neal muttered into the phone. "They're here. I have to run."

"Just keep the call going," Peter said. "We'll track you using the phone. Now run!"

Neal didn't have to be told twice. Picturing Peter's face to spur him on, he started sprinting away from the man, and hopefully out of trouble.

* * *

Peter sprung into action after telling Neal to run. He immediately rushed to his desk and started tracking Neal's call. He had Diana call Mozzie and then told Jones to call Interpol and let them know what was going on. He pinpointed Neal's location and his movement, and sent the information to Interpol so they could get Neal to safety and away from Abigail/Adrianne.

After more than two weeks, they finally knew where Neal was. Just another day or so, and he'd be home. And for the first time in two weeks, Peter genuinely smiled.

* * *

Neal's lungs felt like they were about to burst. His head was pounding. His hip was throbbing. But he couldn't slow down. He knew that Mozzie and June and everyone at home was safe, and it was just about him. It was just about him escaping Abigail. So he ran.

After turning what felt like the hundredth time, Neal finally stopped. He was face to face with six Interpol agents. The surrounded him, and one of them grabbed the phone out of his hand.

"Peter!" Neal cried, hoping Peter would hear him and talk to the agents. But the man who had taken the phone ended the call.

"Neal Caffrey," he said. "You are under arrest for theft." He started reciting to him his rights.

"Call Peter Burke, FBI," Neal wheezed. "Special Agent Peter Burke, for the New York White Collar division. He'll tell you I didn't do this."

The man laughed. "Agent Burke is the one that lead us to you, Mr. Caffrey."

Stunned, Neal could only let himself be handcuffed and lead away. How could Peter have done this to him? Maybe Peter was just buying time until he could come out here, and in the meantime Neal would be safe from Abigail. That must be it. Peter was doing the only thing he could to protect Neal from afar, and he'd set everything straight when he got here. But then why the handcuffs? Neal trusted Peter. Peter had a plan, and he'd figure this out.

Even so, after being booked and put in an orange jumper, Neal was slightly annoyed. He trusted Peter with his life, and he knew Peter wouldn't do this to him. So what was going on?

He knew Peter was on his trail though, so he wasn't too worried. And a night in jail, with some bad tasting food, was better than a night in Abigail's makeshift cell with none.

But the night stretched into two days, and two nights. Neal requested a phone call, but It was denied. Interpol was readying their case against him, charging him for the theft of the Swiss National Bank and the Louvre museum. On the third day Neal started keeping track on the wall. He was getting used to prison again.

Halfway through the third day in prison, he was told he had a visitor. "It's your lawyer," the guard said.

Neal frowned. He imagined a government lawyer in a slick suit trying to convince a judge that he'd done these crimes against his will. This did not look good for him.

But then he was led into the visiting room and he saw Mozzie sitting there.

He wanted to run to him, but the guard and the handcuffs kept him from doing anything other than walking stiffly and slowly. He waited patiently as the handcuffs were removed and he was patted down, but when he was cleared, he rushed the last few steps and the two hugged each other. They had never been the hugging type, but when you thought you'd never see your best friend again, you made some exceptions.

Finally they sat down, and Mozzie looked at Neal, worried. "I should've come sooner. It was chaos for a while, when you dropped off the map. All Interpol did was thank the Suit for his help, and then wouldn't tell him what they were doing with you. It was like you had disappeared all over again. The Suit is trying to get out here to brief Interpol, but he's having bureaucratic issues. So I'm here."

Neal could just stare at him. "I'm so glad you're ok," he said. "I was worried..."

"You were worried!" Mozzie said.

"Abigail..." Neal trailed off slightly. "She showed me pictures, of you, of June, of Diana. She threatened all of you to get me to steal that stuff."

Mozzie nodded. "Cowboy Boots followed me around. Didn't touch me though. Didn't try anything on any of us."

The two of them sat looking at each other. Mozzie met Neal when he had just run away from his home. Young, wide-eyed, and with a pile of forged bonds, he seemed invincible. Mozzie knew him as he matured, started wearing custom suits, and met the love of his life. Mozzie was with him when he became government property, tethered to the FBI on an anklet and unable to search for Kate. Mozzie watched as Neal lost Kate and fell apart, created a relationship with a Suit, and dealt with the abandonment of his father again.

But the Neal Caffrey that sat in front of him was different than any he'd known before. This Neal had lost his charm, his eyes lacking the sparkle he'd always had. Physically, he was so skinny. His baggy jumpsuit couldn't disguise the muscle he'd lost. His cheekbones were more pronounced. And when he saw Mozzie and he smiled, Mozzie could tell it was something he hadn't genuinely done in weeks.

Neal broke the silence. "Mozzie, what am I going to do?"

Mozzie looked at his best friend, and realized Neal didn't have a plan. Neal always had a plan. But not this time. And this went past his physical changes. Under Abigail's control, Neal had lost hope. Mozzie wondered if he could ever get it back.

* * *

_One chapter left! Again, a big thanks to all of you who've stuck with this until now. Final chapter should be up in two or three days. _


	9. Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

"Honey. Peter, listen," Elizabeth was trying to get Peter's attention over the phone. After nightly worried phone calls over the past two weeks, she had finally heard from a relieved and happy Peter three nights ago. He found Neal, or rather, Neal found him, and soon Neal would be home. And as excited and relieved as Elizabeth was to have Neal safe again, that also meant she'd get to see her husband again. She missed him so much.

But after the relief of finding Neal, the phone calls stopped. She called Peter, but it went to voicemail. Then, later that day, she got a call from Diana.

Diana told her the whole story. How Neal escaped and called Peter, how Peter traced his call and gave Interpol the coordinates so they could protect Neal from Abigail, how Neal screamed Peter's name before the phone was disconnected, and how Interpol never communicated with Peter after that, other than to say thank you. She told Elizabeth how Neal disappeared again, how they first tried to trace Abigail when they thought she'd kidnapped him again, how they realized Interpol had him, and how he was going to be tried for theft, and face a lifetime behind bars. Finally she told Elizabeth how Peter was trying to tell Interpol the whole story but they wouldn't listen, how the FBI wouldn't let him travel internationally, and how he blamed himself for what was happening to Neal.

Diana told Elizabeth that Peter hardly slept, hardly ate, and spent all day dealing with bureaucratic nonsense trying to get Neal free.

As soon as Diana hung up, Elizabeth called Peter.

"Peter, listen," she was saying. "This is not your fault. Interpol charging him was not your fault. If you didn't give Interpol his location, he would surely be back under Abigail's control." She only heard his breathing on the other end of the line. "Hon. Are you listening?"

"Yes," Peter said. "I'm listening. Thank you for calling, El. I'm sorry I didn't call you earlier."

"Honey, the best thing you can do for Neal right now is stay healthy. Agent Peter Burke, my husband, can get Neal freed if he is well rested. You understand? You have to sleep, you have to eat."

Her words resonated with Peter. "I will, honey. I promise. And when I wake up, I'll get him back."

"That's the man I love," Elizabeth said. She quickly wiped away a tear, thankful Peter couldn't see her.

* * *

When Mozzie left the prison, Neal was in slightly higher spirits, but still stuck in jail. He kept wondering what was taking Peter so long, why he wasn't in France and why he hadn't gotten the charges dropped yet.

This was what he was thinking of when the guard announced he had another visitor. It was a day after Mozzie's visit, and Neal's fourth day in prison. Neal's heart swelled. It had to be Peter!

But when he walked into the visiting room, he was very surprised. Sitting at the table, looking very out of place in a beautiful blue dress that contrasted her red hair, was Sara Ellis.

He looked down in embarrassment as the guard went through the familiar ritual of removing the handcuffs and patting him down. Then he sat down across from her, trying to flash his trademark smile, but failing. "Sara. This is a surprise."

"Diana called me," she said. "She told me what happened. It was only a short plane ride over here from my new place in England." She looked at him with the same sad, pitiful eyes that she had when she learned about what had happened to Kate. Neal hated it. He hated being looked at like that.

"Sara." His voice wasn't the playful one it had been in the past. It was a low whisper, almost a whimper. "Why are you here?"

"What, you don't want to see me?" Sara tried to joke, but the look on Neal's face caused her laughter to stick in her throat.

"Not like this," Neal muttered.

Silence stretched out between them, and it had nothing to do with the broken-up couple. Neal's head hung slightly. Sara could tell he hated this. Since the night that he had taken her for a picnic on top of the FBI headquarters, their relationship had been equals. Despite their history, and their jobs, they weren't a con man and an insurance investigator. And even when they broke up, when Neal stole the treasure, those roles didn't define their relationship.

But sitting across from him in an orange jumpsuit, Sara could tell he was broken, different in every way from the confident, strutting man she met in a courtroom nearly a decade earlier. She leaned over, and planted a gentle kiss on his cheek. He looked up at her, finally, and she took his hand. "Neal," she whispered, holding his gaze. "What happened?"

His eyes looked sunken, his frame too light. But he looked into her eyes. "A year ago, a woman who went by the name of Abigail blackmailed me into stealing a piece from the Kessman Museum for her. When I delivered the piece, I contacted Peter, and he arrested her with both stolen goods. She went to prison. Three weeks ago, I was walk- I was walking on the waterfront in New York City, when-" he stopped. Swallowing, he started again. "I was walking the waterfront in New York when I approached a man who had been following me. As I did..." He trailed off. The feeling of the hood coming over his head was choking him. Neal's vision went dark and he could hear the man's voice and feel strong hands on his arms and felt himself stumble as he was being pulled and felt the cold van floor on his stomach and feel his arms being wrenched behind him.

Sara watched as he seemed to retreat into himself. His eyes were clenched tight, his knuckles white on the table, and he was shaking slightly. She reached over, and started uncurling his hand, finger by finger. She held one then started on the other. She brushed the back of her hand against his cheek, and murmured, "Neal. Neal, it's ok. You're safe. You're ok, Neal."

He started to come out his shell. His eyes, slightly bloodshot, looked at her. His breathing returned to normal from the quick shallow breaths they had been.

"It's ok, Neal. I'm here. You're safe."

* * *

Neal had spent a week in prison. Sara wrote, but didn't visit again. Mozzie came every day, using his attorney-client privilege to get in. And as much as Neal begged, they wouldn't allow him a phone call. He communicated as best as possible with Peter through Mozzie, but he desperately wanted to hear his voice. He wanted Peter to say it was going to be ok.

Mozzie had suggested several times that Neal make a break for it. It would be all too easy to escape- the French jails were slightly nicer and also slightly less secure, and Neal could spot a chink in its operations from a mile away. He knew exactly how he could escape, but he wouldn't. More than ever before, Neal just wanted to be in New York, as a free man. And that would never happen if he ran.

As the tic marks on his wall grew in numbers, his hope shrank. Every day he got closer and closer to a trial he was sure to lose. Mozzie had been working on an actual defense but without Abigail and the stolen product in her possession, Neal knew it was hopeless. And he didn't know if he had enough in him to fight it.

But eight days after he ran from Abigail in Paris, he got some of the best news of his life. Mozzie came to see him, and said that Peter had managed to convince some high-ups in the Bureau to give him jurisdiction, although temporarily, to travel Europe and any other countries that may be connected to Adrianne Parker. And Neal knew that if anyone could find Abigail and the stolen goods, it was Peter. Finally his spirits lifted slightly.

Slowly, Neal began to accept more food. He started to build up his will. Push-ups in his cell in the morning, smiles at the guards to get them on his side. With every tidbit of information that Mozzie gave him about Peter, Neal became more and more of himself. He was still a long way from the man who told Peter that it was all a game, and Mozzie was unsure that he'd ever be that way anymore, but he was improving. Moz was getting his friend back.

And finally, finally, Neal was woken up in the morning, almost a week later, and given the suit he was wearing when he ran from Abigail. And when he walked out of prison, after two weeks on the inside, he saw Mozzie, Sara, and Peter waiting for him.

Slowly, way too slowly, Neal walked towards them. He kept his eyes on Peter, never wavering, staring at the face of the man who'd been more of a father to him than anyone else in his life, a man he thought he would never see again.

With a yard between them, Neal ran into Peter's arms and Peter did the same to Neal. They held each other, tears seeping out of both of their eyes.

After an eternity, Neal let go and looked at Mozzie appreciatively. Mozzie understood. And then he looked at Sara. Without a word, she pulled him towards her and kissed him. Neal kissed her back, letting himself feel her warmth, wrapping himself around her, before they separated.

The four of them walked over to a car waiting for them. Before Neal got in, Peter pulled him back for a moment and pulled something out of his pocket. A new tracking anklet.

For the first time in over a month, Neal laughed.

THE END!

* * *

_I want to thank everyone so much who've stuck with this and read it the whole way through. This is one of my first ever fanfictions, and one of the first stories I've ever publicly shared like this. The encouragements, the follows, and the reviews have meant more to me than I can express. Thank you so much to everyone who read my story, and I hope you enjoyed it. _

_Here's to a loooong season 6!_

_~E4flying _


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